CN101446838B - Method and device for controlling power consumption of electronic device - Google Patents

Abstract

A method and device for controlling power consumption of an electronic device, which mainly includes: obtaining a permitted application capability parameter of the electronic device, and determining the maximum operating power allowed by the electronic device according to the permitted application capability parameter; limited within the maximum allowable operating power range. Since the embodiment of the present invention restricts the useless power consumption of the electronic device by controlling the working power of the hardware in the electronic device, the power consumption of the electronic device can be effectively reduced. Moreover, the embodiment of the present invention takes into account the permitted application capability parameters of the electronic device during the process of controlling the power consumption, so that the normal operation of the electronic device can still be guaranteed during the process of controlling the power consumption.

Description

Method and device for controlling power consumption of electronic equipment

technical field

The invention relates to the field of electronic technology, in particular to a technology for controlling power consumption of electronic equipment.

Background technique

In the application process of electronic equipment, an important index to measure the performance of electronic equipment is the power consumption of electronic equipment. That is, the energy saving and consumption reduction of communication equipment and other electronic equipment has become the technical development direction of electronic equipment. At the same time, users of electronic equipment also put forward higher requirements on the power consumption of electronic equipment, which requires manufacturers of electronic equipment to produce more energy-saving electronic equipment.

In the course of realizing the present invention, the inventor finds that there are at least the following problems in the prior art:

Taking communication equipment as an example, its hardware capabilities greatly exceed the actual needs of operators in many cases. Therefore, equipment manufacturers use the software license (licensing) function to limit the hardware capabilities of corresponding communication equipment, so that hardware capabilities and Corresponding to the actual needs of operators.

However, while the software license function restricts the application of the hardware capability of the communication device, it does not limit the power consumption of the corresponding communication device, that is, the corresponding communication device is still consuming increasingly scarce energy with its actual hardware capability.

For example, the actual hardware support capability of electronic equipment is 100W, but electronic equipment manufacturers restrict the use rights of electronic equipment users through the software license function, so that they can meet the application requirements by using only less than 50W of power during the application process. However, the existing software license function does not adjust the power consumption accordingly, which greatly increases the power consumption of electronic equipment.

Contents of the invention

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and device for controlling power consumption of electronic equipment, so as to effectively reduce power consumption of electronic equipment during application.

A method of controlling power consumption of an electronic device, comprising:

Obtain the permitted application capability parameters of the electronic equipment, and determine the maximum operating power allowed by the electronic equipment according to the permitted application capability parameters;

The hardware operating power of the electronic device is limited within the allowable maximum operating power range.

An apparatus for controlling power consumption of an electronic device, comprising:

The maximum working power determination unit is configured to obtain the permitted application capability parameter of the electronic device, and determine the maximum permitted working power of the electronic device according to the permitted application capability parameter;

A power control unit, configured to limit the hardware working power of the electronic device within the allowable maximum working power range determined by the maximum working power determining unit.

It can be seen from the technical solution provided by the above embodiments of the present invention that it limits the useless power consumption of the electronic device by controlling the working power of the hardware in the electronic device by allowing the application capability parameter, thereby effectively reducing the power consumption of the electronic device.

Description of drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the following will briefly introduce the accompanying drawings that need to be used in the description of the embodiments. Obviously, the accompanying drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention. For Those of ordinary skill in the art can also obtain other drawings based on these drawings without any creative effort.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a process for controlling power consumption of a power amplifier provided by an embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of the process of controlling CPU, ASIC and power consumption provided by the embodiment of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a schematic structural diagram of a device provided by an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed ways

The following will clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, the described embodiments are only some, not all, embodiments of the present invention. Based on the embodiments of the present invention, all other embodiments obtained by persons of ordinary skill in the art without making creative efforts belong to the protection scope of the present invention.

In the solution for controlling the power consumption of electronic devices provided by the embodiments of the present invention, specifically, the maximum operating power allowed by the electronic device can be determined according to the acquired application capability parameters of the electronic device, and the hardware working power of the electronic device is limited to the corresponding allowable Within the maximum operating power range, in order to achieve the corresponding power control, and reduce the power consumption of electronic equipment under the condition of meeting the application.

The license application capability parameter in the embodiment of the present invention is used to limit the application of the electronic device capability by the user who uses the electronic device. The license application capability parameter is also called the license information of the device, and the license information is usually configured in the license information sold to the user. Electronic devices to limit the user's application permissions. The license information may specifically include, but is not limited to, at least one of the permitted application power value and the permitted number of access users, and of course may also include other parameters that limit the application capability of the electronic device.

In the above process, the maximum allowable operating power of the corresponding electronic equipment may include, but is not limited to, the maximum operating power allowed by one or more components in the electronic equipment and the number of components that are allowed to work normally (or the number of components that are allowed to work normally) At least one of the number of circuits). Specifically, at least one of the maximum operating power allowed by one or more components in the electronic device and the number of components allowed to work normally (or the number of circuits in the components allowed to work normally) can be determined according to the permitted application power value in the license information. One item; for example, when the permitted application power value in the license information is 200W, there are 10 components in the electronic device, and the working power of each component is 40W, then it is determined that the number of components allowed to work normally in the electronic device is 5, or , it can also be determined that the maximum allowable power of each of the 10 components is 20W, or it can also be determined that the number of components that are allowed to work normally is 8, of which the maximum allowable power of 4 components is 30W, and the maximum power of the other 4 components The maximum power allowed is 20W, etc. Alternatively, the maximum operating power allowed by one or more components in the electronic device and the number of components allowed to work normally (or the number of circuits in the components allowed to work normally) can also be determined according to the number of permitted access users in the license information. At least one item; for example, if the number of permitted access users in the license information is 100, then the maximum operating power required by the electronic device can be determined according to the performance of the communication system to meet the communication needs of 100 access users. The maximum operating power (which can be assumed to be the allowable application power value) determines the maximum operating power allowed by one or more components in the electronic device and the number of components that are allowed to work normally (or the number of circuits in a component that is allowed to work normally). at least one.

Further, in the process of controlling the power consumption of the electronic device, when the allowed maximum working power is the maximum working power allowed by one or more components in the electronic device, the The maximum working power limits the maximum working power of the corresponding components in the electronic equipment; The number of parts allowed to work normally in the electronic device limits the number of parts that can work normally in the electronic device or the number of circuits in the parts, so as to reduce the power consumption of the electronic device.

Specifically, the process of limiting the power consumption of the electronic device may include at least one of the following processes:

(1) Limit the input voltage value of one or more components according to the maximum working power allowed by one or more components in the electronic equipment, so as to control the working power of one or more components not to exceed the maximum allowable power of one or more components above Working power, that is, in the case of meeting the needs of electronic equipment users, the power consumption can be reduced by reducing the input voltage of a certain component in the electronic equipment;

(2) According to the number of components in the electronic equipment that allow normal operation or the number of circuits in the components, close the components in the electronic equipment that exceed the above-mentioned number of components that allow normal operation or the circuits that exceed the number of circuits in the components that allow normal operation , that is, in the case of meeting the needs of users of the electronic equipment, only some components or some circuits in the electronic equipment can work normally, so as to reduce the power consumption of the electronic equipment.

The implementation of the embodiments of the present invention enables electronic devices such as communication devices whose actual capabilities exceed those limited by software license functions to effectively reduce the hardware power consumption of the electronic devices by adjusting the working conditions of one or more components to achieve the purpose of energy saving. Moreover, the embodiments of the present invention also have the advantages of convenient implementation and low implementation cost during application.

To facilitate the understanding of the embodiments of the present invention, specific application embodiments are taken as examples for detailed description below.

Taking electronic equipment as a communication equipment base station as an example, the main equipment of the base station is composed of a radio frequency part and a baseband part. The power consumption of the radio frequency part is mainly consumed by the power amplifier, and the power consumption of the baseband part is mainly consumed by each IC ( integrated circuit) chip, such as CPU (central processing unit), ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) and power supply. Assume that the power amplifier hardware of the base station initially purchased by the user can support a working power of 60W, but the user actually only needs a working power of 20W; the baseband single-board hardware of the base station can support the processing of 200 users, but the user actually only needs to support 100 The processing of a user, that is, the license information of the corresponding base station includes: the power license information is 20W, and the user license information is 100 users.

Based on this situation, the embodiment of the present invention can be applied to control the operating power of the power amplifier in the corresponding base station, so as to control its operating point voltage to the best state for adapting to 20W output, and reduce the processing capacity of the baseband hardware of the base station The upper limit is limited to support the processing of 100 users, so as to save the basic power consumption of the base station, that is, to reduce the hardware power consumption of the base station.

After adopting the embodiment of the present invention, the base station can adjust one or more components of the base station to a working state suitable for the license information according to the license information of the base station, so as to reduce the basic power consumption of the hardware. The license information may be a permitted application power value, such as power license information, and/or the number of permitted access users, such as user license information. The specific implementation process of power consumption control for the power amplifier, CPU, ASIC and power supply according to the corresponding license information will be described in detail below. It should be understood that, according to the embodiment of the present invention, power consumption of other components may also be controlled according to corresponding license information.

(1) The process of controlling the power consumption of the power amplifier according to the power license information

This process is to limit the maximum operating power of the power amplifier according to the maximum operating power allowed by the power amplifier components in the base station, as shown in Figure 1, which may specifically include:

In step 11, the power license information controlling the maximum transmit power of the usable power amplifier is obtained from the license file of the base station, and then the maximum power P1=20W that can be used by each power amplifier of the base station is determined.

Step 12, determine the input voltage V1 of the power amplifier according to the value of P1, and configure the input voltage of the power amplifier as V1, so that the input voltage matches the maximum power P1 that the power amplifier can use, so as to reduce the power used by the power amplifier during operation.

Specifically, the value of the input voltage V1 can be determined in the "voltage-output power table" corresponding to the power amplifier, and the corresponding "voltage-output power table" records the difference between the input voltage value and the output power value corresponding to the power amplifier. According to the corresponding relationship, the matching voltage value V1 can be obtained by using P1 as an index.

(2) The process of controlling CPU, ASIC and power consumption according to user license information

This process is to limit the number of parts that can work normally in the base station or the number of circuits in the parts according to the number of parts that are allowed to work normally in the base station. The corresponding parts can be at least one of CPU, ASIC and power supply, as shown in Figure 2 Specifically, it may include:

Step 21, obtain user license information controlling the maximum number of users that the base station can access from the license file of the base station, so as to determine the maximum number N of users that the base station can support.

Step 22, respectively controlling the CPU, ASIC and power supply according to the maximum number of users N supported, which may specifically include:

(1) Determine the operating frequency F of the CPU according to the maximum supported number of users N, and reduce the main frequency of the CPU to the specified operating frequency F, so as to reduce the operating power of the CPU.

Specifically, you can search for the working frequency F that matches the CPU in the preset CPU corresponding to the "number of users-working frequency table", that is, use the maximum number of users N as an index to find the corresponding frequency F in the "number of users-working frequency table" The frequency value F corresponding to the N value.

(2) Determine the number of users supported by each ASIC according to the maximum number of users N supported. Assuming that the number of users to be supported on an ASIC is Na, and the total number of users supported by the ASIC is Nac, then close the ASIC ( The hardware units corresponding to Nac-Na) users are to close some circuits in the ASIC, so as to reduce the working power of the ASIC.

(3) According to the above process (2), the board power P2 of the base station after performing the above power reduction processing can be calculated, and the input voltage V2 of the board power supply can be determined according to the P2 value, and the power supply of the board can be configured The operating point voltage is V2 to reduce the power consumption of the single board power supply;

Specifically, you can look up the matching voltage value V2 of the board power supply in the "Voltage-Output Power Table" corresponding to the board power supply, that is, use the P2 value as an index to find the matching voltage value in the "Voltage-Output Power Table" as Input voltage V2 of the board power supply.

(4) According to the calculation result of the above processing (3), add up the single-board power of each single board to obtain the base station power P3 required for the base station to work, and determine the input voltage V3 of the base station power supply according to the value of P3, and configure the base station power supply The operating point voltage is V3 to reduce the power consumption of the base station power supply;

Specifically, you can look up the matching voltage value V3 of the base station power supply in the "voltage-output power table" corresponding to the base station power supply, that is, use the P3 value as an index to find the matching voltage value in the "voltage-output power table" as the single board The input voltage V3 of the power supply.

Based on the above processing procedure and according to the maximum number N of supported users, the base station can control the power consumption of any one or more items of CPU, ASIC and power supply.

It should be understood that, in the embodiment of the present invention, the maximum allowable work of the corresponding base station can be determined according to any one or both of the permitted application power value such as power license information and the number of permitted access users such as user license information. power; specifically, it is possible to determine the maximum operating power allowed by one or more components in the base station, or to determine the number of components allowed to work normally in the base station (or the number of circuits in the components allowed to work normally), or to determine the Two parameters.

Through the above processing, the power consumption reduction processing for the base station can be realized. At the same time, the implementation process of the embodiment of the present invention is simple, the implementation cost is low, and the basic power consumption of the device can be reduced on the premise of ensuring the operation quality.

Those of ordinary skill in the art can understand that all or part of the processes in the methods of the above embodiments can be implemented through computer programs to instruct related hardware, and the programs can be stored in a computer-readable storage medium. During execution, it may include the processes of the embodiments of the above-mentioned methods. Wherein, the storage medium may be a magnetic disk, an optical disk, a read-only memory (Read-Only Memory, ROM) or a random access memory (Random Access Memory, RAM), etc.

The embodiment of the present invention also provides a device for controlling the power consumption of electronic equipment, the specific implementation structure of which is shown in Figure 1, and may specifically include:

The maximum working power determining unit 101 is configured to obtain the permitted application capability parameter of the electronic device, and determine the maximum working power allowed by the electronic device according to the permitted application capability parameter;

The corresponding permitted application capability parameters may include at least one of the permitted application power value and the number of permitted access users, or may also contain other parameters used to limit the application capabilities of electronic devices; the corresponding allowed maximum operating power may include electronic At least one of the maximum operating power allowed by one or more components in the device and the number of components allowed to work normally (or the number of circuits in a component allowed to work normally).

A power control unit 102, configured to limit the hardware working power of the electronic device within the allowable maximum working power range determined by the above-mentioned maximum working power determining unit 101;

Specifically, the power control unit 102 specifically includes at least one of the following units:

The first power control unit 1021 is configured to, when the corresponding allowed maximum working power is the maximum working power allowed by one or more components in the electronic device, according to one or more of the electronic devices determined by the above-mentioned maximum working power determining unit 101 The maximum operating power allowed by multiple components limits the input voltage value of one or more components, so as to control the operating power of one or more components not to exceed the maximum operating power allowed by the one or more components, and the corresponding components can but not limited to power amplifiers in base stations;

The second power control unit 1022 is configured to, when the corresponding maximum allowable operating power is the number of components or circuits in the components that allow normal operation, determine according to the maximum operating power determination unit 101 in the electronic device that allows normal operation The number of components or the number of circuits in a component, shutting down the components in the electronic equipment that exceed the number of components that allow normal operation or the circuits that exceed the number of circuits in the components that allow normal operation, the corresponding components can be, but not limited to, in the base station At least one of the CPU, ASIC and power supply.

In the device, the specific functional processing processes of the corresponding units have been described in detail in the previous embodiments of controlling the power consumption of electronic equipment, so details are not repeated here.

The device for controlling the power consumption of electronic equipment provided by the embodiments of the present invention has the advantages of simple implementation process and low implementation cost, and it can be applied to existing electronic equipment, and can also be applied to electronic equipment produced by equipment manufacturers in the future. Moreover, the device can also effectively reduce the basic power consumption of electronic equipment under the premise of ensuring the operation quality.

The above is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited thereto. Any person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in the present invention can easily think of changes or Replacement should be covered within the protection scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention should be determined by the protection scope of the claims.

Claims (10)

1. A method for controlling power consumption of electronic equipment, comprising: Obtain the permitted application capability parameter of the electronic device, and determine the maximum operating power allowed by the electronic device according to the permitted application capability parameter. The permitted application capability parameter is used to limit the application of the electronic device capability by the user using the electronic device, according to actual needs to be determined; The hardware operating power of the electronic device is limited within the allowable maximum operating power range. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the permitted application capability parameters include: at least one of a permitted application power value and a permitted access user number. 3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the maximum allowable operating power includes at least one of the following: The maximum permissible operating power of one or more components in an electronic device, and the number of components or circuits in a component that are allowed to function normally. 4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the step of limiting the hardware operating power of the electronic device within the allowable maximum operating power range specifically includes at least one of the following processes: When the allowed maximum working power is the maximum working power allowed by one or more components in the electronic equipment, limit the input voltage value of one or more components according to the allowed maximum working power of one or more components in the electronic equipment , to control the operating power of one or more components not to exceed the maximum operating power allowed by the one or more components; When the maximum allowable operating power is the number of components or circuits in the components that allow normal operation, according to the number of components that allow normal operation in the electronic equipment or the number of circuits in the components, shut down the electronic equipment that exceeds the allowable normal A working part count of a part or a circuit in excess of the number of circuits in a part that is allowed to function properly. 5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the electronic device is a base station, and the components include one or more of a power amplifier, a central processing unit (CPU), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and a power supply. 6. A device for controlling power consumption of electronic equipment, comprising: The maximum working power determining unit is used to obtain the permitted application capability parameter of the electronic device, and determine the maximum working power allowed by the electronic device according to the permitted application capability parameter, and the permitted application capability parameter is used to limit the user who uses the electronic device to The application of electronic equipment capabilities shall be determined according to the actual needs of users; A power control unit, configured to limit the hardware working power of the electronic device within the allowable maximum working power range determined by the maximum working power determining unit. 7. The device according to claim 6, wherein the permitted application capability parameters include: at least one of a permitted application power value and a permitted access user number. 8. The device according to claim 6 or 7, wherein the maximum allowable operating power includes at least one of the following: The maximum permissible operating power of one or more components in an electronic device, and the number of components or circuits in a component that are allowed to function normally. 9. The device according to claim 8, wherein the power control unit specifically comprises at least one of the following units: The first power control unit is configured to: when the allowed maximum working power is the maximum working power allowed by one or more components in the electronic equipment, one or more of the electronic equipment determined by the maximum working power determining unit limit the input voltage value of one or more components to control the operating power of one or more components not to exceed the maximum allowable operating power of the one or more components; The second power control unit is configured to, when the allowable maximum operating power is the number of components that allow normal operation or the number of circuits in the components, determine the components that allow normal operation in the electronic device determined by the maximum operating power determination unit Quantity or the number of circuits in a part, shutting down a part of an electronic device in excess of said number of parts allowed to function properly or a circuit in excess of the number of circuits in a part allowed to function normally. 10. The device according to claim 8, wherein the electronic device is a base station, and the components include one or more of a power amplifier, a central processing unit (CPU), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and a power supply.

Images