Methods and apparatus for adaptive power profiling in a baseband processing system
Methods and apparatus for adaptive power profiling in a baseband processing system. In an exemplary embodiment, an apparatus includes one or more processing engines. Each processing engine performs at least one data processing function. The apparatus also includes an adaptive power profile (APP) and a job manager that receives job requests for data processing. The job manager allocates the data processing associated with the job requests to the processing engines based on the adaptive power profile. The adaptive power profile identifies a first group of the processing engines to perform the data processing associated with the job requests, and identifies remaining processing engines to be set to a low power mode.
1. An apparatus capable of providing power conservation for baseband signal process in a base station for facilitating network communications, the apparatus comprising:
one or more processing engines configured to perform one or more data processing functions, wherein each processing engine includes a clock gating circuit (CGC) configured to facilitate power conservation;
an adaptive power profile (APP) coupled to the processing engines and providing information indicating power consumptions for at least one processing engines and providing one or more enable signals for controlling power conservation via the CGCs; and
a job manager coupled to the APP and configured to receive job requests for data processing, wherein the job manager allocates the data processing associated with the job requests to at least one of the processing engines based on the information from the adaptive power profile, and wherein the job manager identifies a first group of the processing engines to perform the data processing associated with the job requests in accordance with one or more enable signals from the APP to the CGCs of the first group of the processing engines, and identifies remaining processing engines to be set to a low power mode in response to the enable signals from the APP to the CGCs of the remaining processing engines.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the adaptive power profile is selected from a plurality of adaptive power profiles.
3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the adaptive power profile is dynamically generated.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the adaptive power profile is used by the job manager to dynamically allocate a selected number of simultaneous job requests to the processing engines.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the data processing associated with the job requests is performed over a selected time interval.
6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein each processing engine is configured to perform a processing cycle wherein data is read from a memory, a selected processing function is performed on the data to generate processed data, and the processed data is written back to the memory.
7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the first group of the processing engines performs in a non-pipelined process wherein each processing engine performs one processing cycle at a time.
8. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the first group of the processing engines performs in a pipelined process wherein each processing engine performs two or more processing cycles at a time.
9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the job manager gates a clock to the remaining processing engines to set the low power mode.
10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein during the pipelined process a first processing engine starts a first processing cycle to process a first job and a second processing engine starts a second processing cycle to process a second job, wherein before the first processing cycle is complete the first processing engine starts a third processing cycle to process a third job, and wherein before the second processing cycle is complete the second processing engine starts a fourth processing cycle to process a fourth job.
11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the APP defines how the job requests are allocated to the processing engines to achieve a selected power utilization versus processing performance characteristic.
12. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the AAP defines how the job requests are allocated to the processing engines to achieve a selected power utilization characteristic.
13. A method of power conservation for baseband signal process in a base station containing a pocket processing subsystem and a baseband processor subsystem for facilitating network communications, comprising:
receiving, by a job manager, job requests for data processing from the pocket processing subsystem for facilitating network communications;
allocating the data processing associated with the job requests to a first group of processing engines based on an adaptive power profile;
assigning the job requests to the first group of processing engines via activating a first portion of enable signals to place the first group of processing engines into an active mode; and
setting remaining processing engines to a low power mode via turning off system clocks to the remaining processing engines by sending at least one disable signal from the adaptive power profile to clock gating circuits (CGCs) of the remaining processing engines.
14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising at least one of selecting the adaptive power profile from a plurality of adaptive power profile and dynamically generating the adaptive power profile.
15. The method of claim 13 , further comprising performing the data processing associated with the job requests over a selected time interval.
16. The method of claim 13 , further comprising performing a processing cycle at each processing engine, wherein the processing cycle comprises performing a memory read operation, performing a processing operation, and performing a memory write operation.
17. The method of claim 16 , further comprising performing the data processing associated with the job requests using a non-pipelined process, wherein each of the first group of the processing engines performs one processing cycle at a time.
18. The method of claim 16 , further comprising performing the data processing associated with the job requests using a pipelined process, wherein each of the first group of the processing engines performs at least two processing cycles at a time.
19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the pipelined process comprises:
starting a first processing cycle at a first processing engine to process a first job;
starting a second processing cycle at a second processing engine to process a second job;
starting a third processing cycle at the first processing engine to process a third job, wherein the first and the third processing cycles overlap; and
starting a fourth processing cycle at the second processing engine to process a fourth job, wherein the second and the fourth processing cycles overlap.
20. The method of claim 13 , further comprising achieving at least one of a selected power utilization versus processing performance characteristic and a selected power utilization characteristic by allocating the job requests to the first group of processing engines based on the adaptive power profile.