Adaptive energy-management features of the IBM POWER 7 chip

The IBM POWER7® processor implements several new adaptive power-management techniques that, in concert with the EnergyScalei firmware, allow it to proactively take advantage of variations in workload, environmental conditions, and overall system utilization to meet customer-directed power and performance goals. These features build on the support and the capabilities provided by its predecessor, i.e., the IBM POWER6™ processor. Among these are per-core frequency scaling with available autonomous frequency controls, per-chip automated voltage slewing, power-consumption estimation, soft power capping, and hardware instrumentation assist.