摘要 |
The present invention relates to a data processing system and method having a reduced power consumption. A power context is established for each application task, process or thread running within a computer system. The power context controls the operating conditions of the processor by, for example, reducing the frequency of the processor clock or the operating voltage of the processor. A scheduler is used to switch between threads a, in horn, between power contexts associated with the threads. The switching is performed according to the conventional priority switching of threads by an operating system. However, since each tread has an associated power context, the performance of the processor, and hence the power consumption is varied on a time slot-by-time slot basis.
|