Energy-Efficient Platforms: Designing Devices Using the New Power Management Extensions for Interconnects

Overview

Ever since the Personal Computing (PC) platforms were launched in the 1980s, there has been a constant demand for increased performance. Computing performance has followed Moore's Law during the last three decades, allowing consumers to have the performance, capability and connectivity undreamt of just a few years ago. But these advancements have also contributed to an increase in system-level energy consumption in spite of remarkable gains on processing efficiency. Starting around 2000, the popularity and demand of mobile computing platforms have been steadily rising. Consumers of mobile platforms demand the same performance as desktops but also view battery life and small form factors as very important usability factors. With Energy Star active and idle power requirements, system level power consumption is not just a battery life issue.