The Energy Model (EM) provides useful information about device power in
each performance state to other subsystems like: Energy Aware Scheduler
(EAS). The energy calculation in EAS does arithmetic operation based on
the EM em_cpu_energy(). Current implementation of that function uses
em_perf_state::cost as a pre-computed cost coefficient equal to:
cost = power * max_frequency / frequency.
The 'power' is expressed in milli-Watts (or in abstract scale).
There are corner cases when the EAS energy calculation for two Performance
Domains (PDs) return the same value. The EAS compares these values to
choose smaller one. It might happen that this values are equal due to
rounding error. In such scenario, we need better resolution, e.g. 1000
times better. To provide this possibility increase the resolution in the
em_perf_state::cost for 64-bit architectures. The cost of increasing
resolution on 32-bit is pretty high (64-bit division) and is not justified
since there are no new 32bit big.LITTLE EAS systems expected which would
benefit from this higher resolution.
This patch allows to avoid the rounding to milli-Watt errors, which might
occur in EAS energy estimation for each PD. The rounding error is common
for small tasks which have small utilization value.
There are two places in the code where it makes a difference:
1. In the find_energy_efficient_cpu() where we are searching for
best_delta. We might suffer there when two PDs return the same result,
like in the example below.
Scenario:
Low utilized system e.g. ~200 sum_util for PD0 and ~220 for PD1. There
are quite a few small tasks ~10-15 util. These tasks would suffer for
the rounding error. These utilization values are typical when running games
on Android. One of our partners has reported 5..10mA less battery drain
when running with increased resolution.
Some details:
We have two PDs: PD0 (big) and PD1 (little)
Let's compare w/o patch set ('old') and w/ patch set ('new')
We are comparing energy w/ task and w/o task placed in the PDs
2. Difference in the 6% energy margin filter at the end of
find_energy_efficient_cpu(). With this patch the margin comparison also
has better resolution, so it's possible to have better task placement
thanks to that.
Fixes: 27871f7a8a341ef ("PM: Introduce an Energy Model management framework") Reported-by: CCJ Yeh <CCj.Yeh@mediatek.com> Reviewed-by: Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@arm.com> Signed-off-by: Lukasz Luba <lukasz.luba@arm.com> Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>