Power Profiles May Help Lower Power Consumption of Chips

There is a chance that such profiles could lead to a decrease of the energy consumption of small devices such as cell phones both small as well as large computing installations such as data centers.

The basic idea isn't exactly new, as the research apparently focused on figuring out how much power processors draw when running different applications. However, Kathryn McKinley, professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, said the scientists "did some measurements that no one else had done before."

"We showed that different software, and different classes of software, have really different power usage," McKinley said. An example would be that an application that leverages the GPS chip will cause a battery to run out of power faster than an application that does not. By itself, that is not a surprise, but McKinley, whose work was recently selected as one of this year's "most significant research papers in computer architecture based on novelty and long-term impact" by the journal IEEE Micro, said that power profiles could become a standard part of software to tell the consumer how much power a certain app will draw - which would influence the decision process whether an app will be installed or not.

  • unksol
    Great, another common sense "feature" published in a "research" paper... its only a matter of time till someone at Apple sees the paper and starts drafting a patent...
    Reply
  • tanjo
    *
    Energy consumption5Wh average

    Do you STILL want to continue to installation?
    Reply
  • memadmax
    These scientists must've been bored...........
    Reply
  • joytech22
    Imagine the combined power consumption of all those stupid fart apps..
    Reply
  • I am working on a research paper for the scientific measurement of the lameness of an application. If it is totally lame that will help someone's decision to buy the app.
    Reply
  • nforce4max
    This is likely the most unintelligent result of the piss poor education that I've seen in recent months. Really power profiles lol wow haven't this already been thought of before. I guess they are now only discovering what Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, and other companies have been working on for years. As for the power consumption is dependent on load imposed by the app not "profiles" >.<

    Reducing clocks in real time on a modular architecture can reduce power consumption rather nicely.
    Reply
  • BruceOTB
    You don't say?
    Reply
  • How about a device that tells me how lame my comment is going to be before I make it?
    Reply
  • srgess
    i hear closing the light dramastic lower your power consumption.
    Reply
  • N.Broekhuijsen
    So..... Her method defines the needs of processing power as a preset per application, requiring a substantial amount of work to configure, whilst the big companies (intel, AMD, TI, Qualcomm etc.) use advanced algorithms to accomplish the same task on the fly, fully automated. What is the point of her method? Cure boredom?
    Reply