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authorRafael J. Wysocki <rjw@rjwysocki.net>2017-03-13 18:59:57 -0400
committerJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>2017-03-13 19:08:42 -0400
commit2a0e49279850d28c450f27e51b419ce90bacdcdc (patch)
tree96e995e194a1bb9926a4f1c4fa01571bf218e148
parent8fa1bb506fc9b5b0f7b5e42cee4f8213325a98ee (diff)
cpufreq: User/admin documentation update and consolidation
The user/admin documentation of cpufreq is badly outdated. It conains stale and/or inaccurate information along with things that are not particularly useful. Also, some of the important pieces are missing from it. For this reason, add a new user/admin document for cpufreq containing current information to admin-guide and drop the old outdated .txt documents it is replacing. Since there will be more PM documents in admin-guide going forward, create a separate directory for them and put the cpufreq document in there right away. Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com> Acked-by: Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
-rw-r--r--Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst1
-rw-r--r--Documentation/admin-guide/pm/cpufreq.rst700
-rw-r--r--Documentation/admin-guide/pm/index.rst15
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cpu-freq/boost.txt93
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt301
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cpu-freq/index.txt7
-rw-r--r--Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt228
7 files changed, 716 insertions, 629 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
index 8ddae4e4299a..8c60a8a32a1a 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ configure specific aspects of kernel behavior to your liking.
60 mono 60 mono
61 java 61 java
62 ras 62 ras
63 pm/index
63 64
64.. only:: subproject and html 65.. only:: subproject and html
65 66
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/cpufreq.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/cpufreq.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..289c80f7760e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/cpufreq.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,700 @@
1.. |struct cpufreq_policy| replace:: :c:type:`struct cpufreq_policy <cpufreq_policy>`
2
3=======================
4CPU Performance Scaling
5=======================
6
7::
8
9 Copyright (c) 2017 Intel Corp., Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
10
11The Concept of CPU Performance Scaling
12======================================
13
14The majority of modern processors are capable of operating in a number of
15different clock frequency and voltage configurations, often referred to as
16Operating Performance Points or P-states (in ACPI terminology). As a rule,
17the higher the clock frequency and the higher the voltage, the more instructions
18can be retired by the CPU over a unit of time, but also the higher the clock
19frequency and the higher the voltage, the more energy is consumed over a unit of
20time (or the more power is drawn) by the CPU in the given P-state. Therefore
21there is a natural tradeoff between the CPU capacity (the number of instructions
22that can be executed over a unit of time) and the power drawn by the CPU.
23
24In some situations it is desirable or even necessary to run the program as fast
25as possible and then there is no reason to use any P-states different from the
26highest one (i.e. the highest-performance frequency/voltage configuration
27available). In some other cases, however, it may not be necessary to execute
28instructions so quickly and maintaining the highest available CPU capacity for a
29relatively long time without utilizing it entirely may be regarded as wasteful.
30It also may not be physically possible to maintain maximum CPU capacity for too
31long for thermal or power supply capacity reasons or similar. To cover those
32cases, there are hardware interfaces allowing CPUs to be switched between
33different frequency/voltage configurations or (in the ACPI terminology) to be
34put into different P-states.
35
36Typically, they are used along with algorithms to estimate the required CPU
37capacity, so as to decide which P-states to put the CPUs into. Of course, since
38the utilization of the system generally changes over time, that has to be done
39repeatedly on a regular basis. The activity by which this happens is referred
40to as CPU performance scaling or CPU frequency scaling (because it involves
41adjusting the CPU clock frequency).
42
43
44CPU Performance Scaling in Linux
45================================
46
47The Linux kernel supports CPU performance scaling by means of the ``CPUFreq``
48(CPU Frequency scaling) subsystem that consists of three layers of code: the
49core, scaling governors and scaling drivers.
50
51The ``CPUFreq`` core provides the common code infrastructure and user space
52interfaces for all platforms that support CPU performance scaling. It defines
53the basic framework in which the other components operate.
54
55Scaling governors implement algorithms to estimate the required CPU capacity.
56As a rule, each governor implements one, possibly parametrized, scaling
57algorithm.
58
59Scaling drivers talk to the hardware. They provide scaling governors with
60information on the available P-states (or P-state ranges in some cases) and
61access platform-specific hardware interfaces to change CPU P-states as requested
62by scaling governors.
63
64In principle, all available scaling governors can be used with every scaling
65driver. That design is based on the observation that the information used by
66performance scaling algorithms for P-state selection can be represented in a
67platform-independent form in the majority of cases, so it should be possible
68to use the same performance scaling algorithm implemented in exactly the same
69way regardless of which scaling driver is used. Consequently, the same set of
70scaling governors should be suitable for every supported platform.
71
72However, that observation may not hold for performance scaling algorithms
73based on information provided by the hardware itself, for example through
74feedback registers, as that information is typically specific to the hardware
75interface it comes from and may not be easily represented in an abstract,
76platform-independent way. For this reason, ``CPUFreq`` allows scaling drivers
77to bypass the governor layer and implement their own performance scaling
78algorithms. That is done by the ``intel_pstate`` scaling driver.
79
80
81``CPUFreq`` Policy Objects
82==========================
83
84In some cases the hardware interface for P-state control is shared by multiple
85CPUs. That is, for example, the same register (or set of registers) is used to
86control the P-state of multiple CPUs at the same time and writing to it affects
87all of those CPUs simultaneously.
88
89Sets of CPUs sharing hardware P-state control interfaces are represented by
90``CPUFreq`` as |struct cpufreq_policy| objects. For consistency,
91|struct cpufreq_policy| is also used when there is only one CPU in the given
92set.
93
94The ``CPUFreq`` core maintains a pointer to a |struct cpufreq_policy| object for
95every CPU in the system, including CPUs that are currently offline. If multiple
96CPUs share the same hardware P-state control interface, all of the pointers
97corresponding to them point to the same |struct cpufreq_policy| object.
98
99``CPUFreq`` uses |struct cpufreq_policy| as its basic data type and the design
100of its user space interface is based on the policy concept.
101
102
103CPU Initialization
104==================
105
106First of all, a scaling driver has to be registered for ``CPUFreq`` to work.
107It is only possible to register one scaling driver at a time, so the scaling
108driver is expected to be able to handle all CPUs in the system.
109
110The scaling driver may be registered before or after CPU registration. If
111CPUs are registered earlier, the driver core invokes the ``CPUFreq`` core to
112take a note of all of the already registered CPUs during the registration of the
113scaling driver. In turn, if any CPUs are registered after the registration of
114the scaling driver, the ``CPUFreq`` core will be invoked to take note of them
115at their registration time.
116
117In any case, the ``CPUFreq`` core is invoked to take note of any logical CPU it
118has not seen so far as soon as it is ready to handle that CPU. [Note that the
119logical CPU may be a physical single-core processor, or a single core in a
120multicore processor, or a hardware thread in a physical processor or processor
121core. In what follows "CPU" always means "logical CPU" unless explicitly stated
122otherwise and the word "processor" is used to refer to the physical part
123possibly including multiple logical CPUs.]
124
125Once invoked, the ``CPUFreq`` core checks if the policy pointer is already set
126for the given CPU and if so, it skips the policy object creation. Otherwise,
127a new policy object is created and initialized, which involves the creation of
128a new policy directory in ``sysfs``, and the policy pointer corresponding to
129the given CPU is set to the new policy object's address in memory.
130
131Next, the scaling driver's ``->init()`` callback is invoked with the policy
132pointer of the new CPU passed to it as the argument. That callback is expected
133to initialize the performance scaling hardware interface for the given CPU (or,
134more precisely, for the set of CPUs sharing the hardware interface it belongs
135to, represented by its policy object) and, if the policy object it has been
136called for is new, to set parameters of the policy, like the minimum and maximum
137frequencies supported by the hardware, the table of available frequencies (if
138the set of supported P-states is not a continuous range), and the mask of CPUs
139that belong to the same policy (including both online and offline CPUs). That
140mask is then used by the core to populate the policy pointers for all of the
141CPUs in it.
142
143The next major initialization step for a new policy object is to attach a
144scaling governor to it (to begin with, that is the default scaling governor
145determined by the kernel configuration, but it may be changed later
146via ``sysfs``). First, a pointer to the new policy object is passed to the
147governor's ``->init()`` callback which is expected to initialize all of the
148data structures necessary to handle the given policy and, possibly, to add
149a governor ``sysfs`` interface to it. Next, the governor is started by
150invoking its ``->start()`` callback.
151
152That callback it expected to register per-CPU utilization update callbacks for
153all of the online CPUs belonging to the given policy with the CPU scheduler.
154The utilization update callbacks will be invoked by the CPU scheduler on
155important events, like task enqueue and dequeue, on every iteration of the
156scheduler tick or generally whenever the CPU utilization may change (from the
157scheduler's perspective). They are expected to carry out computations needed
158to determine the P-state to use for the given policy going forward and to
159invoke the scaling driver to make changes to the hardware in accordance with
160the P-state selection. The scaling driver may be invoked directly from
161scheduler context or asynchronously, via a kernel thread or workqueue, depending
162on the configuration and capabilities of the scaling driver and the governor.
163
164Similar steps are taken for policy objects that are not new, but were "inactive"
165previously, meaning that all of the CPUs belonging to them were offline. The
166only practical difference in that case is that the ``CPUFreq`` core will attempt
167to use the scaling governor previously used with the policy that became
168"inactive" (and is re-initialized now) instead of the default governor.
169
170In turn, if a previously offline CPU is being brought back online, but some
171other CPUs sharing the policy object with it are online already, there is no
172need to re-initialize the policy object at all. In that case, it only is
173necessary to restart the scaling governor so that it can take the new online CPU
174into account. That is achieved by invoking the governor's ``->stop`` and
175``->start()`` callbacks, in this order, for the entire policy.
176
177As mentioned before, the ``intel_pstate`` scaling driver bypasses the scaling
178governor layer of ``CPUFreq`` and provides its own P-state selection algorithms.
179Consequently, if ``intel_pstate`` is used, scaling governors are not attached to
180new policy objects. Instead, the driver's ``->setpolicy()`` callback is invoked
181to register per-CPU utilization update callbacks for each policy. These
182callbacks are invoked by the CPU scheduler in the same way as for scaling
183governors, but in the ``intel_pstate`` case they both determine the P-state to
184use and change the hardware configuration accordingly in one go from scheduler
185context.
186
187The policy objects created during CPU initialization and other data structures
188associated with them are torn down when the scaling driver is unregistered
189(which happens when the kernel module containing it is unloaded, for example) or
190when the last CPU belonging to the given policy in unregistered.
191
192
193Policy Interface in ``sysfs``
194=============================
195
196During the initialization of the kernel, the ``CPUFreq`` core creates a
197``sysfs`` directory (kobject) called ``cpufreq`` under
198:file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/`.
199
200That directory contains a ``policyX`` subdirectory (where ``X`` represents an
201integer number) for every policy object maintained by the ``CPUFreq`` core.
202Each ``policyX`` directory is pointed to by ``cpufreq`` symbolic links
203under :file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuY/` (where ``Y`` represents an integer
204that may be different from the one represented by ``X``) for all of the CPUs
205associated with (or belonging to) the given policy. The ``policyX`` directories
206in :file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq` each contain policy-specific
207attributes (files) to control ``CPUFreq`` behavior for the corresponding policy
208objects (that is, for all of the CPUs associated with them).
209
210Some of those attributes are generic. They are created by the ``CPUFreq`` core
211and their behavior generally does not depend on what scaling driver is in use
212and what scaling governor is attached to the given policy. Some scaling drivers
213also add driver-specific attributes to the policy directories in ``sysfs`` to
214control policy-specific aspects of driver behavior.
215
216The generic attributes under :file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policyX/`
217are the following:
218
219``affected_cpus``
220 List of online CPUs belonging to this policy (i.e. sharing the hardware
221 performance scaling interface represented by the ``policyX`` policy
222 object).
223
224``bios_limit``
225 If the platform firmware (BIOS) tells the OS to apply an upper limit to
226 CPU frequencies, that limit will be reported through this attribute (if
227 present).
228
229 The existence of the limit may be a result of some (often unintentional)
230 BIOS settings, restrictions coming from a service processor or another
231 BIOS/HW-based mechanisms.
232
233 This does not cover ACPI thermal limitations which can be discovered
234 through a generic thermal driver.
235
236 This attribute is not present if the scaling driver in use does not
237 support it.
238
239``cpuinfo_max_freq``
240 Maximum possible operating frequency the CPUs belonging to this policy
241 can run at (in kHz).
242
243``cpuinfo_min_freq``
244 Minimum possible operating frequency the CPUs belonging to this policy
245 can run at (in kHz).
246
247``cpuinfo_transition_latency``
248 The time it takes to switch the CPUs belonging to this policy from one
249 P-state to another, in nanoseconds.
250
251 If unknown or if known to be so high that the scaling driver does not
252 work with the `ondemand`_ governor, -1 (:c:macro:`CPUFREQ_ETERNAL`)
253 will be returned by reads from this attribute.
254
255``related_cpus``
256 List of all (online and offline) CPUs belonging to this policy.
257
258``scaling_available_governors``
259 List of ``CPUFreq`` scaling governors present in the kernel that can
260 be attached to this policy or (if the ``intel_pstate`` scaling driver is
261 in use) list of scaling algorithms provided by the driver that can be
262 applied to this policy.
263
264 [Note that some governors are modular and it may be necessary to load a
265 kernel module for the governor held by it to become available and be
266 listed by this attribute.]
267
268``scaling_cur_freq``
269 Current frequency of all of the CPUs belonging to this policy (in kHz).
270
271 For the majority of scaling drivers, this is the frequency of the last
272 P-state requested by the driver from the hardware using the scaling
273 interface provided by it, which may or may not reflect the frequency
274 the CPU is actually running at (due to hardware design and other
275 limitations).
276
277 Some scaling drivers (e.g. ``intel_pstate``) attempt to provide
278 information more precisely reflecting the current CPU frequency through
279 this attribute, but that still may not be the exact current CPU
280 frequency as seen by the hardware at the moment.
281
282``scaling_driver``
283 The scaling driver currently in use.
284
285``scaling_governor``
286 The scaling governor currently attached to this policy or (if the
287 ``intel_pstate`` scaling driver is in use) the scaling algorithm
288 provided by the driver that is currently applied to this policy.
289
290 This attribute is read-write and writing to it will cause a new scaling
291 governor to be attached to this policy or a new scaling algorithm
292 provided by the scaling driver to be applied to it (in the
293 ``intel_pstate`` case), as indicated by the string written to this
294 attribute (which must be one of the names listed by the
295 ``scaling_available_governors`` attribute described above).
296
297``scaling_max_freq``
298 Maximum frequency the CPUs belonging to this policy are allowed to be
299 running at (in kHz).
300
301 This attribute is read-write and writing a string representing an
302 integer to it will cause a new limit to be set (it must not be lower
303 than the value of the ``scaling_min_freq`` attribute).
304
305``scaling_min_freq``
306 Minimum frequency the CPUs belonging to this policy are allowed to be
307 running at (in kHz).
308
309 This attribute is read-write and writing a string representing a
310 non-negative integer to it will cause a new limit to be set (it must not
311 be higher than the value of the ``scaling_max_freq`` attribute).
312
313``scaling_setspeed``
314 This attribute is functional only if the `userspace`_ scaling governor
315 is attached to the given policy.
316
317 It returns the last frequency requested by the governor (in kHz) or can
318 be written to in order to set a new frequency for the policy.
319
320
321Generic Scaling Governors
322=========================
323
324``CPUFreq`` provides generic scaling governors that can be used with all
325scaling drivers. As stated before, each of them implements a single, possibly
326parametrized, performance scaling algorithm.
327
328Scaling governors are attached to policy objects and different policy objects
329can be handled by different scaling governors at the same time (although that
330may lead to suboptimal results in some cases).
331
332The scaling governor for a given policy object can be changed at any time with
333the help of the ``scaling_governor`` policy attribute in ``sysfs``.
334
335Some governors expose ``sysfs`` attributes to control or fine-tune the scaling
336algorithms implemented by them. Those attributes, referred to as governor
337tunables, can be either global (system-wide) or per-policy, depending on the
338scaling driver in use. If the driver requires governor tunables to be
339per-policy, they are located in a subdirectory of each policy directory.
340Otherwise, they are located in a subdirectory under
341:file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/`. In either case the name of the
342subdirectory containing the governor tunables is the name of the governor
343providing them.
344
345``performance``
346---------------
347
348When attached to a policy object, this governor causes the highest frequency,
349within the ``scaling_max_freq`` policy limit, to be requested for that policy.
350
351The request is made once at that time the governor for the policy is set to
352``performance`` and whenever the ``scaling_max_freq`` or ``scaling_min_freq``
353policy limits change after that.
354
355``powersave``
356-------------
357
358When attached to a policy object, this governor causes the lowest frequency,
359within the ``scaling_min_freq`` policy limit, to be requested for that policy.
360
361The request is made once at that time the governor for the policy is set to
362``powersave`` and whenever the ``scaling_max_freq`` or ``scaling_min_freq``
363policy limits change after that.
364
365``userspace``
366-------------
367
368This governor does not do anything by itself. Instead, it allows user space
369to set the CPU frequency for the policy it is attached to by writing to the
370``scaling_setspeed`` attribute of that policy.
371
372``schedutil``
373-------------
374
375This governor uses CPU utilization data available from the CPU scheduler. It
376generally is regarded as a part of the CPU scheduler, so it can access the
377scheduler's internal data structures directly.
378
379It runs entirely in scheduler context, although in some cases it may need to
380invoke the scaling driver asynchronously when it decides that the CPU frequency
381should be changed for a given policy (that depends on whether or not the driver
382is capable of changing the CPU frequency from scheduler context).
383
384The actions of this governor for a particular CPU depend on the scheduling class
385invoking its utilization update callback for that CPU. If it is invoked by the
386RT or deadline scheduling classes, the governor will increase the frequency to
387the allowed maximum (that is, the ``scaling_max_freq`` policy limit). In turn,
388if it is invoked by the CFS scheduling class, the governor will use the
389Per-Entity Load Tracking (PELT) metric for the root control group of the
390given CPU as the CPU utilization estimate (see the `Per-entity load tracking`_
391LWN.net article for a description of the PELT mechanism). Then, the new
392CPU frequency to apply is computed in accordance with the formula
393
394 f = 1.25 * ``f_0`` * ``util`` / ``max``
395
396where ``util`` is the PELT number, ``max`` is the theoretical maximum of
397``util``, and ``f_0`` is either the maximum possible CPU frequency for the given
398policy (if the PELT number is frequency-invariant), or the current CPU frequency
399(otherwise).
400
401This governor also employs a mechanism allowing it to temporarily bump up the
402CPU frequency for tasks that have been waiting on I/O most recently, called
403"IO-wait boosting". That happens when the :c:macro:`SCHED_CPUFREQ_IOWAIT` flag
404is passed by the scheduler to the governor callback which causes the frequency
405to go up to the allowed maximum immediately and then draw back to the value
406returned by the above formula over time.
407
408This governor exposes only one tunable:
409
410``rate_limit_us``
411 Minimum time (in microseconds) that has to pass between two consecutive
412 runs of governor computations (default: 1000 times the scaling driver's
413 transition latency).
414
415 The purpose of this tunable is to reduce the scheduler context overhead
416 of the governor which might be excessive without it.
417
418This governor generally is regarded as a replacement for the older `ondemand`_
419and `conservative`_ governors (described below), as it is simpler and more
420tightly integrated with the CPU scheduler, its overhead in terms of CPU context
421switches and similar is less significant, and it uses the scheduler's own CPU
422utilization metric, so in principle its decisions should not contradict the
423decisions made by the other parts of the scheduler.
424
425``ondemand``
426------------
427
428This governor uses CPU load as a CPU frequency selection metric.
429
430In order to estimate the current CPU load, it measures the time elapsed between
431consecutive invocations of its worker routine and computes the fraction of that
432time in which the given CPU was not idle. The ratio of the non-idle (active)
433time to the total CPU time is taken as an estimate of the load.
434
435If this governor is attached to a policy shared by multiple CPUs, the load is
436estimated for all of them and the greatest result is taken as the load estimate
437for the entire policy.
438
439The worker routine of this governor has to run in process context, so it is
440invoked asynchronously (via a workqueue) and CPU P-states are updated from
441there if necessary. As a result, the scheduler context overhead from this
442governor is minimum, but it causes additional CPU context switches to happen
443relatively often and the CPU P-state updates triggered by it can be relatively
444irregular. Also, it affects its own CPU load metric by running code that
445reduces the CPU idle time (even though the CPU idle time is only reduced very
446slightly by it).
447
448It generally selects CPU frequencies proportional to the estimated load, so that
449the value of the ``cpuinfo_max_freq`` policy attribute corresponds to the load of
4501 (or 100%), and the value of the ``cpuinfo_min_freq`` policy attribute
451corresponds to the load of 0, unless when the load exceeds a (configurable)
452speedup threshold, in which case it will go straight for the highest frequency
453it is allowed to use (the ``scaling_max_freq`` policy limit).
454
455This governor exposes the following tunables:
456
457``sampling_rate``
458 This is how often the governor's worker routine should run, in
459 microseconds.
460
461 Typically, it is set to values of the order of 10000 (10 ms). Its
462 default value is equal to the value of ``cpuinfo_transition_latency``
463 for each policy this governor is attached to (but since the unit here
464 is greater by 1000, this means that the time represented by
465 ``sampling_rate`` is 1000 times greater than the transition latency by
466 default).
467
468 If this tunable is per-policy, the following shell command sets the time
469 represented by it to be 750 times as high as the transition latency::
470
471 # echo `$(($(cat cpuinfo_transition_latency) * 750 / 1000)) > ondemand/sampling_rate
472
473
474``min_sampling_rate``
475 The minimum value of ``sampling_rate``.
476
477 Equal to 10000 (10 ms) if :c:macro:`CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON` and
478 :c:data:`tick_nohz_active` are both set or to 20 times the value of
479 :c:data:`jiffies` in microseconds otherwise.
480
481``up_threshold``
482 If the estimated CPU load is above this value (in percent), the governor
483 will set the frequency to the maximum value allowed for the policy.
484 Otherwise, the selected frequency will be proportional to the estimated
485 CPU load.
486
487``ignore_nice_load``
488 If set to 1 (default 0), it will cause the CPU load estimation code to
489 treat the CPU time spent on executing tasks with "nice" levels greater
490 than 0 as CPU idle time.
491
492 This may be useful if there are tasks in the system that should not be
493 taken into account when deciding what frequency to run the CPUs at.
494 Then, to make that happen it is sufficient to increase the "nice" level
495 of those tasks above 0 and set this attribute to 1.
496
497``sampling_down_factor``
498 Temporary multiplier, between 1 (default) and 100 inclusive, to apply to
499 the ``sampling_rate`` value if the CPU load goes above ``up_threshold``.
500
501 This causes the next execution of the governor's worker routine (after
502 setting the frequency to the allowed maximum) to be delayed, so the
503 frequency stays at the maximum level for a longer time.
504
505 Frequency fluctuations in some bursty workloads may be avoided this way
506 at the cost of additional energy spent on maintaining the maximum CPU
507 capacity.
508
509``powersave_bias``
510 Reduction factor to apply to the original frequency target of the
511 governor (including the maximum value used when the ``up_threshold``
512 value is exceeded by the estimated CPU load) or sensitivity threshold
513 for the AMD frequency sensitivity powersave bias driver
514 (:file:`drivers/cpufreq/amd_freq_sensitivity.c`), between 0 and 1000
515 inclusive.
516
517 If the AMD frequency sensitivity powersave bias driver is not loaded,
518 the effective frequency to apply is given by
519
520 f * (1 - ``powersave_bias`` / 1000)
521
522 where f is the governor's original frequency target. The default value
523 of this attribute is 0 in that case.
524
525 If the AMD frequency sensitivity powersave bias driver is loaded, the
526 value of this attribute is 400 by default and it is used in a different
527 way.
528
529 On Family 16h (and later) AMD processors there is a mechanism to get a
530 measured workload sensitivity, between 0 and 100% inclusive, from the
531 hardware. That value can be used to estimate how the performance of the
532 workload running on a CPU will change in response to frequency changes.
533
534 The performance of a workload with the sensitivity of 0 (memory-bound or
535 IO-bound) is not expected to increase at all as a result of increasing
536 the CPU frequency, whereas workloads with the sensitivity of 100%
537 (CPU-bound) are expected to perform much better if the CPU frequency is
538 increased.
539
540 If the workload sensitivity is less than the threshold represented by
541 the ``powersave_bias`` value, the sensitivity powersave bias driver
542 will cause the governor to select a frequency lower than its original
543 target, so as to avoid over-provisioning workloads that will not benefit
544 from running at higher CPU frequencies.
545
546``conservative``
547----------------
548
549This governor uses CPU load as a CPU frequency selection metric.
550
551It estimates the CPU load in the same way as the `ondemand`_ governor described
552above, but the CPU frequency selection algorithm implemented by it is different.
553
554Namely, it avoids changing the frequency significantly over short time intervals
555which may not be suitable for systems with limited power supply capacity (e.g.
556battery-powered). To achieve that, it changes the frequency in relatively
557small steps, one step at a time, up or down - depending on whether or not a
558(configurable) threshold has been exceeded by the estimated CPU load.
559
560This governor exposes the following tunables:
561
562``freq_step``
563 Frequency step in percent of the maximum frequency the governor is
564 allowed to set (the ``scaling_max_freq`` policy limit), between 0 and
565 100 (5 by default).
566
567 This is how much the frequency is allowed to change in one go. Setting
568 it to 0 will cause the default frequency step (5 percent) to be used
569 and setting it to 100 effectively causes the governor to periodically
570 switch the frequency between the ``scaling_min_freq`` and
571 ``scaling_max_freq`` policy limits.
572
573``down_threshold``
574 Threshold value (in percent, 20 by default) used to determine the
575 frequency change direction.
576
577 If the estimated CPU load is greater than this value, the frequency will
578 go up (by ``freq_step``). If the load is less than this value (and the
579 ``sampling_down_factor`` mechanism is not in effect), the frequency will
580 go down. Otherwise, the frequency will not be changed.
581
582``sampling_down_factor``
583 Frequency decrease deferral factor, between 1 (default) and 10
584 inclusive.
585
586 It effectively causes the frequency to go down ``sampling_down_factor``
587 times slower than it ramps up.
588
589
590Frequency Boost Support
591=======================
592
593Background
594----------
595
596Some processors support a mechanism to raise the operating frequency of some
597cores in a multicore package temporarily (and above the sustainable frequency
598threshold for the whole package) under certain conditions, for example if the
599whole chip is not fully utilized and below its intended thermal or power budget.
600
601Different names are used by different vendors to refer to this functionality.
602For Intel processors it is referred to as "Turbo Boost", AMD calls it
603"Turbo-Core" or (in technical documentation) "Core Performance Boost" and so on.
604As a rule, it also is implemented differently by different vendors. The simple
605term "frequency boost" is used here for brevity to refer to all of those
606implementations.
607
608The frequency boost mechanism may be either hardware-based or software-based.
609If it is hardware-based (e.g. on x86), the decision to trigger the boosting is
610made by the hardware (although in general it requires the hardware to be put
611into a special state in which it can control the CPU frequency within certain
612limits). If it is software-based (e.g. on ARM), the scaling driver decides
613whether or not to trigger boosting and when to do that.
614
615The ``boost`` File in ``sysfs``
616-------------------------------
617
618This file is located under :file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/` and controls
619the "boost" setting for the whole system. It is not present if the underlying
620scaling driver does not support the frequency boost mechanism (or supports it,
621but provides a driver-specific interface for controlling it, like
622``intel_pstate``).
623
624If the value in this file is 1, the frequency boost mechanism is enabled. This
625means that either the hardware can be put into states in which it is able to
626trigger boosting (in the hardware-based case), or the software is allowed to
627trigger boosting (in the software-based case). It does not mean that boosting
628is actually in use at the moment on any CPUs in the system. It only means a
629permission to use the frequency boost mechanism (which still may never be used
630for other reasons).
631
632If the value in this file is 0, the frequency boost mechanism is disabled and
633cannot be used at all.
634
635The only values that can be written to this file are 0 and 1.
636
637Rationale for Boost Control Knob
638--------------------------------
639
640The frequency boost mechanism is generally intended to help to achieve optimum
641CPU performance on time scales below software resolution (e.g. below the
642scheduler tick interval) and it is demonstrably suitable for many workloads, but
643it may lead to problems in certain situations.
644
645For this reason, many systems make it possible to disable the frequency boost
646mechanism in the platform firmware (BIOS) setup, but that requires the system to
647be restarted for the setting to be adjusted as desired, which may not be
648practical at least in some cases. For example:
649
650 1. Boosting means overclocking the processor, although under controlled
651 conditions. Generally, the processor's energy consumption increases
652 as a result of increasing its frequency and voltage, even temporarily.
653 That may not be desirable on systems that switch to power sources of
654 limited capacity, such as batteries, so the ability to disable the boost
655 mechanism while the system is running may help there (but that depends on
656 the workload too).
657
658 2. In some situations deterministic behavior is more important than
659 performance or energy consumption (or both) and the ability to disable
660 boosting while the system is running may be useful then.
661
662 3. To examine the impact of the frequency boost mechanism itself, it is useful
663 to be able to run tests with and without boosting, preferably without
664 restarting the system in the meantime.
665
666 4. Reproducible results are important when running benchmarks. Since
667 the boosting functionality depends on the load of the whole package,
668 single-thread performance may vary because of it which may lead to
669 unreproducible results sometimes. That can be avoided by disabling the
670 frequency boost mechanism before running benchmarks sensitive to that
671 issue.
672
673Legacy AMD ``cpb`` Knob
674-----------------------
675
676The AMD powernow-k8 scaling driver supports a ``sysfs`` knob very similar to
677the global ``boost`` one. It is used for disabling/enabling the "Core
678Performance Boost" feature of some AMD processors.
679
680If present, that knob is located in every ``CPUFreq`` policy directory in
681``sysfs`` (:file:`/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policyX/`) and is called
682``cpb``, which indicates a more fine grained control interface. The actual
683implementation, however, works on the system-wide basis and setting that knob
684for one policy causes the same value of it to be set for all of the other
685policies at the same time.
686
687That knob is still supported on AMD processors that support its underlying
688hardware feature, but it may be configured out of the kernel (via the
689:c:macro:`CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ_CPB` configuration option) and the global
690``boost`` knob is present regardless. Thus it is always possible use the
691``boost`` knob instead of the ``cpb`` one which is highly recommended, as that
692is more consistent with what all of the other systems do (and the ``cpb`` knob
693may not be supported any more in the future).
694
695The ``cpb`` knob is never present for any processors without the underlying
696hardware feature (e.g. all Intel ones), even if the
697:c:macro:`CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ_CPB` configuration option is set.
698
699
700.. _Per-entity load tracking: https://lwn.net/Articles/531853/
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/index.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..c80f087321fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/pm/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
1================
2Power Management
3================
4
5.. toctree::
6 :maxdepth: 2
7
8 cpufreq
9
10.. only:: subproject and html
11
12 Indices
13 =======
14
15 * :ref:`genindex`
diff --git a/Documentation/cpu-freq/boost.txt b/Documentation/cpu-freq/boost.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index dd62e1334f0a..000000000000
--- a/Documentation/cpu-freq/boost.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,93 +0,0 @@
1Processor boosting control
2
3 - information for users -
4
5Quick guide for the impatient:
6--------------------
7/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost
8controls the boost setting for the whole system. You can read and write
9that file with either "0" (boosting disabled) or "1" (boosting allowed).
10Reading or writing 1 does not mean that the system is boosting at this
11very moment, but only that the CPU _may_ raise the frequency at it's
12discretion.
13--------------------
14
15Introduction
16-------------
17Some CPUs support a functionality to raise the operating frequency of
18some cores in a multi-core package if certain conditions apply, mostly
19if the whole chip is not fully utilized and below it's intended thermal
20budget. The decision about boost disable/enable is made either at hardware
21(e.g. x86) or software (e.g ARM).
22On Intel CPUs this is called "Turbo Boost", AMD calls it "Turbo-Core",
23in technical documentation "Core performance boost". In Linux we use
24the term "boost" for convenience.
25
26Rationale for disable switch
27----------------------------
28
29Though the idea is to just give better performance without any user
30intervention, sometimes the need arises to disable this functionality.
31Most systems offer a switch in the (BIOS) firmware to disable the
32functionality at all, but a more fine-grained and dynamic control would
33be desirable:
341. While running benchmarks, reproducible results are important. Since
35 the boosting functionality depends on the load of the whole package,
36 single thread performance can vary. By explicitly disabling the boost
37 functionality at least for the benchmark's run-time the system will run
38 at a fixed frequency and results are reproducible again.
392. To examine the impact of the boosting functionality it is helpful
40 to do tests with and without boosting.
413. Boosting means overclocking the processor, though under controlled
42 conditions. By raising the frequency and the voltage the processor
43 will consume more power than without the boosting, which may be
44 undesirable for instance for mobile users. Disabling boosting may
45 save power here, though this depends on the workload.
46
47
48User controlled switch
49----------------------
50
51To allow the user to toggle the boosting functionality, the cpufreq core
52driver exports a sysfs knob to enable or disable it. There is a file:
53/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost
54which can either read "0" (boosting disabled) or "1" (boosting enabled).
55The file is exported only when cpufreq driver supports boosting.
56Explicitly changing the permissions and writing to that file anyway will
57return EINVAL.
58
59On supported CPUs one can write either a "0" or a "1" into this file.
60This will either disable the boost functionality on all cores in the
61whole system (0) or will allow the software or hardware to boost at will
62(1).
63
64Writing a "1" does not explicitly boost the system, but just allows the
65CPU to boost at their discretion. Some implementations take external
66factors like the chip's temperature into account, so boosting once does
67not necessarily mean that it will occur every time even using the exact
68same software setup.
69
70
71AMD legacy cpb switch
72---------------------
73The AMD powernow-k8 driver used to support a very similar switch to
74disable or enable the "Core Performance Boost" feature of some AMD CPUs.
75This switch was instantiated in each CPU's cpufreq directory
76(/sys/devices/system/cpu[0-9]*/cpufreq) and was called "cpb".
77Though the per CPU existence hints at a more fine grained control, the
78actual implementation only supported a system-global switch semantics,
79which was simply reflected into each CPU's file. Writing a 0 or 1 into it
80would pull the other CPUs to the same state.
81For compatibility reasons this file and its behavior is still supported
82on AMD CPUs, though it is now protected by a config switch
83(X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ_CPB). On Intel CPUs this file will never be created,
84even with the config option set.
85This functionality is considered legacy and will be removed in some future
86kernel version.
87
88More fine grained boosting control
89----------------------------------
90
91Technically it is possible to switch the boosting functionality at least
92on a per package basis, for some CPUs even per core. Currently the driver
93does not support it, but this may be implemented in the future.
diff --git a/Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt b/Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 61b3184b6c24..000000000000
--- a/Documentation/cpu-freq/governors.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,301 +0,0 @@
1 CPU frequency and voltage scaling code in the Linux(TM) kernel
2
3
4 L i n u x C P U F r e q
5
6 C P U F r e q G o v e r n o r s
7
8 - information for users and developers -
9
10
11 Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
12 some additions and corrections by Nico Golde <nico@ngolde.de>
13 Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael.j.wysocki@intel.com>
14 Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@linaro.org>
15
16
17
18 Clock scaling allows you to change the clock speed of the CPUs on the
19 fly. This is a nice method to save battery power, because the lower
20 the clock speed, the less power the CPU consumes.
21
22
23Contents:
24---------
251. What is a CPUFreq Governor?
26
272. Governors In the Linux Kernel
282.1 Performance
292.2 Powersave
302.3 Userspace
312.4 Ondemand
322.5 Conservative
332.6 Schedutil
34
353. The Governor Interface in the CPUfreq Core
36
374. References
38
39
401. What Is A CPUFreq Governor?
41==============================
42
43Most cpufreq drivers (except the intel_pstate and longrun) or even most
44cpu frequency scaling algorithms only allow the CPU frequency to be set
45to predefined fixed values. In order to offer dynamic frequency
46scaling, the cpufreq core must be able to tell these drivers of a
47"target frequency". So these specific drivers will be transformed to
48offer a "->target/target_index/fast_switch()" call instead of the
49"->setpolicy()" call. For set_policy drivers, all stays the same,
50though.
51
52How to decide what frequency within the CPUfreq policy should be used?
53That's done using "cpufreq governors".
54
55Basically, it's the following flow graph:
56
57CPU can be set to switch independently | CPU can only be set
58 within specific "limits" | to specific frequencies
59
60 "CPUfreq policy"
61 consists of frequency limits (policy->{min,max})
62 and CPUfreq governor to be used
63 / \
64 / \
65 / the cpufreq governor decides
66 / (dynamically or statically)
67 / what target_freq to set within
68 / the limits of policy->{min,max}
69 / \
70 / \
71 Using the ->setpolicy call, Using the ->target/target_index/fast_switch call,
72 the limits and the the frequency closest
73 "policy" is set. to target_freq is set.
74 It is assured that it
75 is within policy->{min,max}
76
77
782. Governors In the Linux Kernel
79================================
80
812.1 Performance
82---------------
83
84The CPUfreq governor "performance" sets the CPU statically to the
85highest frequency within the borders of scaling_min_freq and
86scaling_max_freq.
87
88
892.2 Powersave
90-------------
91
92The CPUfreq governor "powersave" sets the CPU statically to the
93lowest frequency within the borders of scaling_min_freq and
94scaling_max_freq.
95
96
972.3 Userspace
98-------------
99
100The CPUfreq governor "userspace" allows the user, or any userspace
101program running with UID "root", to set the CPU to a specific frequency
102by making a sysfs file "scaling_setspeed" available in the CPU-device
103directory.
104
105
1062.4 Ondemand
107------------
108
109The CPUfreq governor "ondemand" sets the CPU frequency depending on the
110current system load. Load estimation is triggered by the scheduler
111through the update_util_data->func hook; when triggered, cpufreq checks
112the CPU-usage statistics over the last period and the governor sets the
113CPU accordingly. The CPU must have the capability to switch the
114frequency very quickly.
115
116Sysfs files:
117
118* sampling_rate:
119
120 Measured in uS (10^-6 seconds), this is how often you want the kernel
121 to look at the CPU usage and to make decisions on what to do about the
122 frequency. Typically this is set to values of around '10000' or more.
123 It's default value is (cmp. with users-guide.txt): transition_latency
124 * 1000. Be aware that transition latency is in ns and sampling_rate
125 is in us, so you get the same sysfs value by default. Sampling rate
126 should always get adjusted considering the transition latency to set
127 the sampling rate 750 times as high as the transition latency in the
128 bash (as said, 1000 is default), do:
129
130 $ echo `$(($(cat cpuinfo_transition_latency) * 750 / 1000)) > ondemand/sampling_rate
131
132* sampling_rate_min:
133
134 The sampling rate is limited by the HW transition latency:
135 transition_latency * 100
136
137 Or by kernel restrictions:
138 - If CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON is set, the limit is 10ms fixed.
139 - If CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON is not set or nohz=off boot parameter is
140 used, the limits depend on the CONFIG_HZ option:
141 HZ=1000: min=20000us (20ms)
142 HZ=250: min=80000us (80ms)
143 HZ=100: min=200000us (200ms)
144
145 The highest value of kernel and HW latency restrictions is shown and
146 used as the minimum sampling rate.
147
148* up_threshold:
149
150 This defines what the average CPU usage between the samplings of
151 'sampling_rate' needs to be for the kernel to make a decision on
152 whether it should increase the frequency. For example when it is set
153 to its default value of '95' it means that between the checking
154 intervals the CPU needs to be on average more than 95% in use to then
155 decide that the CPU frequency needs to be increased.
156
157* ignore_nice_load:
158
159 This parameter takes a value of '0' or '1'. When set to '0' (its
160 default), all processes are counted towards the 'cpu utilisation'
161 value. When set to '1', the processes that are run with a 'nice'
162 value will not count (and thus be ignored) in the overall usage
163 calculation. This is useful if you are running a CPU intensive
164 calculation on your laptop that you do not care how long it takes to
165 complete as you can 'nice' it and prevent it from taking part in the
166 deciding process of whether to increase your CPU frequency.
167
168* sampling_down_factor:
169
170 This parameter controls the rate at which the kernel makes a decision
171 on when to decrease the frequency while running at top speed. When set
172 to 1 (the default) decisions to reevaluate load are made at the same
173 interval regardless of current clock speed. But when set to greater
174 than 1 (e.g. 100) it acts as a multiplier for the scheduling interval
175 for reevaluating load when the CPU is at its top speed due to high
176 load. This improves performance by reducing the overhead of load
177 evaluation and helping the CPU stay at its top speed when truly busy,
178 rather than shifting back and forth in speed. This tunable has no
179 effect on behavior at lower speeds/lower CPU loads.
180
181* powersave_bias:
182
183 This parameter takes a value between 0 to 1000. It defines the
184 percentage (times 10) value of the target frequency that will be
185 shaved off of the target. For example, when set to 100 -- 10%, when
186 ondemand governor would have targeted 1000 MHz, it will target
187 1000 MHz - (10% of 1000 MHz) = 900 MHz instead. This is set to 0
188 (disabled) by default.
189
190 When AMD frequency sensitivity powersave bias driver --
191 drivers/cpufreq/amd_freq_sensitivity.c is loaded, this parameter
192 defines the workload frequency sensitivity threshold in which a lower
193 frequency is chosen instead of ondemand governor's original target.
194 The frequency sensitivity is a hardware reported (on AMD Family 16h
195 Processors and above) value between 0 to 100% that tells software how
196 the performance of the workload running on a CPU will change when
197 frequency changes. A workload with sensitivity of 0% (memory/IO-bound)
198 will not perform any better on higher core frequency, whereas a
199 workload with sensitivity of 100% (CPU-bound) will perform better
200 higher the frequency. When the driver is loaded, this is set to 400 by
201 default -- for CPUs running workloads with sensitivity value below
202 40%, a lower frequency is chosen. Unloading the driver or writing 0
203 will disable this feature.
204
205
2062.5 Conservative
207----------------
208
209The CPUfreq governor "conservative", much like the "ondemand"
210governor, sets the CPU frequency depending on the current usage. It
211differs in behaviour in that it gracefully increases and decreases the
212CPU speed rather than jumping to max speed the moment there is any load
213on the CPU. This behaviour is more suitable in a battery powered
214environment. The governor is tweaked in the same manner as the
215"ondemand" governor through sysfs with the addition of:
216
217* freq_step:
218
219 This describes what percentage steps the cpu freq should be increased
220 and decreased smoothly by. By default the cpu frequency will increase
221 in 5% chunks of your maximum cpu frequency. You can change this value
222 to anywhere between 0 and 100 where '0' will effectively lock your CPU
223 at a speed regardless of its load whilst '100' will, in theory, make
224 it behave identically to the "ondemand" governor.
225
226* down_threshold:
227
228 Same as the 'up_threshold' found for the "ondemand" governor but for
229 the opposite direction. For example when set to its default value of
230 '20' it means that if the CPU usage needs to be below 20% between
231 samples to have the frequency decreased.
232
233* sampling_down_factor:
234
235 Similar functionality as in "ondemand" governor. But in
236 "conservative", it controls the rate at which the kernel makes a
237 decision on when to decrease the frequency while running in any speed.
238 Load for frequency increase is still evaluated every sampling rate.
239
240
2412.6 Schedutil
242-------------
243
244The "schedutil" governor aims at better integration with the Linux
245kernel scheduler. Load estimation is achieved through the scheduler's
246Per-Entity Load Tracking (PELT) mechanism, which also provides
247information about the recent load [1]. This governor currently does
248load based DVFS only for tasks managed by CFS. RT and DL scheduler tasks
249are always run at the highest frequency. Unlike all the other
250governors, the code is located under the kernel/sched/ directory.
251
252Sysfs files:
253
254* rate_limit_us:
255
256 This contains a value in microseconds. The governor waits for
257 rate_limit_us time before reevaluating the load again, after it has
258 evaluated the load once.
259
260For an in-depth comparison with the other governors refer to [2].
261
262
2633. The Governor Interface in the CPUfreq Core
264=============================================
265
266A new governor must register itself with the CPUfreq core using
267"cpufreq_register_governor". The struct cpufreq_governor, which has to
268be passed to that function, must contain the following values:
269
270governor->name - A unique name for this governor.
271governor->owner - .THIS_MODULE for the governor module (if appropriate).
272
273plus a set of hooks to the functions implementing the governor's logic.
274
275The CPUfreq governor may call the CPU processor driver using one of
276these two functions:
277
278int cpufreq_driver_target(struct cpufreq_policy *policy,
279 unsigned int target_freq,
280 unsigned int relation);
281
282int __cpufreq_driver_target(struct cpufreq_policy *policy,
283 unsigned int target_freq,
284 unsigned int relation);
285
286target_freq must be within policy->min and policy->max, of course.
287What's the difference between these two functions? When your governor is
288in a direct code path of a call to governor callbacks, like
289governor->start(), the policy->rwsem is still held in the cpufreq core,
290and there's no need to lock it again (in fact, this would cause a
291deadlock). So use __cpufreq_driver_target only in these cases. In all
292other cases (for example, when there's a "daemonized" function that
293wakes up every second), use cpufreq_driver_target to take policy->rwsem
294before the command is passed to the cpufreq driver.
295
2964. References
297=============
298
299[1] Per-entity load tracking: https://lwn.net/Articles/531853/
300[2] Improvements in CPU frequency management: https://lwn.net/Articles/682391/
301
diff --git a/Documentation/cpu-freq/index.txt b/Documentation/cpu-freq/index.txt
index ef1d39247b05..03a7cee6ac73 100644
--- a/Documentation/cpu-freq/index.txt
+++ b/Documentation/cpu-freq/index.txt
@@ -21,8 +21,6 @@ Documents in this directory:
21 21
22amd-powernow.txt - AMD powernow driver specific file. 22amd-powernow.txt - AMD powernow driver specific file.
23 23
24boost.txt - Frequency boosting support.
25
26core.txt - General description of the CPUFreq core and 24core.txt - General description of the CPUFreq core and
27 of CPUFreq notifiers. 25 of CPUFreq notifiers.
28 26
@@ -32,17 +30,12 @@ cpufreq-nforce2.txt - nVidia nForce2 platform specific file.
32 30
33cpufreq-stats.txt - General description of sysfs cpufreq stats. 31cpufreq-stats.txt - General description of sysfs cpufreq stats.
34 32
35governors.txt - What are cpufreq governors and how to
36 implement them?
37
38index.txt - File index, Mailing list and Links (this document) 33index.txt - File index, Mailing list and Links (this document)
39 34
40intel-pstate.txt - Intel pstate cpufreq driver specific file. 35intel-pstate.txt - Intel pstate cpufreq driver specific file.
41 36
42pcc-cpufreq.txt - PCC cpufreq driver specific file. 37pcc-cpufreq.txt - PCC cpufreq driver specific file.
43 38
44user-guide.txt - User Guide to CPUFreq
45
46 39
47Mailing List 40Mailing List
48------------ 41------------
diff --git a/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt b/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 391da64e9492..000000000000
--- a/Documentation/cpu-freq/user-guide.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,228 +0,0 @@
1 CPU frequency and voltage scaling code in the Linux(TM) kernel
2
3
4 L i n u x C P U F r e q
5
6 U S E R G U I D E
7
8
9 Dominik Brodowski <linux@brodo.de>
10
11
12
13 Clock scaling allows you to change the clock speed of the CPUs on the
14 fly. This is a nice method to save battery power, because the lower
15 the clock speed, the less power the CPU consumes.
16
17
18Contents:
19---------
201. Supported Architectures and Processors
211.1 ARM and ARM64
221.2 x86
231.3 sparc64
241.4 ppc
251.5 SuperH
261.6 Blackfin
27
282. "Policy" / "Governor"?
292.1 Policy
302.2 Governor
31
323. How to change the CPU cpufreq policy and/or speed
333.1 Preferred interface: sysfs
34
35
36
371. Supported Architectures and Processors
38=========================================
39
401.1 ARM and ARM64
41-----------------
42
43Almost all ARM and ARM64 platforms support CPU frequency scaling.
44
451.2 x86
46-------
47
48The following processors for the x86 architecture are supported by cpufreq:
49
50AMD Elan - SC400, SC410
51AMD mobile K6-2+
52AMD mobile K6-3+
53AMD mobile Duron
54AMD mobile Athlon
55AMD Opteron
56AMD Athlon 64
57Cyrix Media GXm
58Intel mobile PIII and Intel mobile PIII-M on certain chipsets
59Intel Pentium 4, Intel Xeon
60Intel Pentium M (Centrino)
61National Semiconductors Geode GX
62Transmeta Crusoe
63Transmeta Efficeon
64VIA Cyrix 3 / C3
65various processors on some ACPI 2.0-compatible systems [*]
66And many more
67
68[*] Only if "ACPI Processor Performance States" are available
69to the ACPI<->BIOS interface.
70
71
721.3 sparc64
73-----------
74
75The following processors for the sparc64 architecture are supported by
76cpufreq:
77
78UltraSPARC-III
79
80
811.4 ppc
82-------
83
84Several "PowerBook" and "iBook2" notebooks are supported.
85The following POWER processors are supported in powernv mode:
86POWER8
87POWER9
88
891.5 SuperH
90----------
91
92All SuperH processors supporting rate rounding through the clock
93framework are supported by cpufreq.
94
951.6 Blackfin
96------------
97
98The following Blackfin processors are supported by cpufreq:
99
100BF522, BF523, BF524, BF525, BF526, BF527, Rev 0.1 or higher
101BF531, BF532, BF533, Rev 0.3 or higher
102BF534, BF536, BF537, Rev 0.2 or higher
103BF561, Rev 0.3 or higher
104BF542, BF544, BF547, BF548, BF549, Rev 0.1 or higher
105
106
1072. "Policy" / "Governor" ?
108==========================
109
110Some CPU frequency scaling-capable processor switch between various
111frequencies and operating voltages "on the fly" without any kernel or
112user involvement. This guarantees very fast switching to a frequency
113which is high enough to serve the user's needs, but low enough to save
114power.
115
116
1172.1 Policy
118----------
119
120On these systems, all you can do is select the lower and upper
121frequency limit as well as whether you want more aggressive
122power-saving or more instantly available processing power.
123
124
1252.2 Governor
126------------
127
128On all other cpufreq implementations, these boundaries still need to
129be set. Then, a "governor" must be selected. Such a "governor" decides
130what speed the processor shall run within the boundaries. One such
131"governor" is the "userspace" governor. This one allows the user - or
132a yet-to-implement userspace program - to decide what specific speed
133the processor shall run at.
134
135
1363. How to change the CPU cpufreq policy and/or speed
137====================================================
138
1393.1 Preferred Interface: sysfs
140------------------------------
141
142The preferred interface is located in the sysfs filesystem. If you
143mounted it at /sys, the cpufreq interface is located in a subdirectory
144"cpufreq" within the cpu-device directory
145(e.g. /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/ for the first CPU).
146
147affected_cpus : List of Online CPUs that require software
148 coordination of frequency.
149
150cpuinfo_cur_freq : Current frequency of the CPU as obtained from
151 the hardware, in KHz. This is the frequency
152 the CPU actually runs at.
153
154cpuinfo_min_freq : this file shows the minimum operating
155 frequency the processor can run at(in kHz)
156
157cpuinfo_max_freq : this file shows the maximum operating
158 frequency the processor can run at(in kHz)
159
160cpuinfo_transition_latency The time it takes on this CPU to
161 switch between two frequencies in nano
162 seconds. If unknown or known to be
163 that high that the driver does not
164 work with the ondemand governor, -1
165 (CPUFREQ_ETERNAL) will be returned.
166 Using this information can be useful
167 to choose an appropriate polling
168 frequency for a kernel governor or
169 userspace daemon. Make sure to not
170 switch the frequency too often
171 resulting in performance loss.
172
173related_cpus : List of Online + Offline CPUs that need software
174 coordination of frequency.
175
176scaling_available_frequencies : List of available frequencies, in KHz.
177
178scaling_available_governors : this file shows the CPUfreq governors
179 available in this kernel. You can see the
180 currently activated governor in
181
182scaling_cur_freq : Current frequency of the CPU as determined by
183 the governor and cpufreq core, in KHz. This is
184 the frequency the kernel thinks the CPU runs
185 at.
186
187scaling_driver : this file shows what cpufreq driver is
188 used to set the frequency on this CPU
189
190scaling_governor, and by "echoing" the name of another
191 governor you can change it. Please note
192 that some governors won't load - they only
193 work on some specific architectures or
194 processors.
195
196scaling_min_freq and
197scaling_max_freq show the current "policy limits" (in
198 kHz). By echoing new values into these
199 files, you can change these limits.
200 NOTE: when setting a policy you need to
201 first set scaling_max_freq, then
202 scaling_min_freq.
203
204scaling_setspeed This can be read to get the currently programmed
205 value by the governor. This can be written to
206 change the current frequency for a group of
207 CPUs, represented by a policy. This is supported
208 currently only by the userspace governor.
209
210bios_limit : If the BIOS tells the OS to limit a CPU to
211 lower frequencies, the user can read out the
212 maximum available frequency from this file.
213 This typically can happen through (often not
214 intended) BIOS settings, restrictions
215 triggered through a service processor or other
216 BIOS/HW based implementations.
217 This does not cover thermal ACPI limitations
218 which can be detected through the generic
219 thermal driver.
220
221If you have selected the "userspace" governor which allows you to
222set the CPU operating frequency to a specific value, you can read out
223the current frequency in
224
225scaling_setspeed. By "echoing" a new frequency into this
226 you can change the speed of the CPU,
227 but only within the limits of
228 scaling_min_freq and scaling_max_freq.