Mobile Terminal Application Processor Wakeup Priority Filtering

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Solution Overview

Problem

Application processors in mobile terminals frequently wake up due to frequent instructions, leading to increased power consumption and reduced battery life, especially when the terminal is in a sleep state and receives instructions such as cell handover or time update requests.

Innovation Solution

Implement a method to detect when the mobile terminal is in a preset state (screen-off, non-charging, or low-speed state) and only report instructions with higher priority to the application processor, caching and delaying lower-priority instructions until the terminal is active or a specific threshold is met, thereby reducing the frequency of wake-ups.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If the application processor immediately reports all instructions upon receiving them, then the system responds promptly to all events, but the application processor frequently wakes up from sleep state increasing power consumption

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveinstruction response reliabilityVSAvoidapplication processor power consumption
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the parameter of instruction reporting timing by introducing priority levels and conditional reporting thresholds. Instead of immediately reporting all instructions, the system evaluates instruction priority against a threshold and only reports high-priority instructions, thereby reducing wake-up frequency while maintaining critical system responsiveness

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary filtering mechanism between instruction reception and application processor reporting. This intermediary layer evaluates instruction priority and determines whether to report based on predefined thresholds, acting as a mediator that prevents unnecessary wake-ups while ensuring critical instructions are still transmitted

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Use of energy by moving object

If the application processor enters sleep state to reduce power consumption, then energy efficiency improves, but the processor may miss important instructions requiring immediate attention

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvepower consumptionVSAvoidinstruction processing reliability
Core Design Contradiction:
Use of energy by moving objectVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the state parameter of the application processor by introducing a selective reporting mechanism based on instruction priority. High-priority instructions trigger processor wake-up while low-priority instructions are filtered out, allowing the processor to maintain sleep state longer while still responding to critical events

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the system continuously monitors instruction priority levels and adjusts reporting behavior accordingly. The feedback loop ensures that when high-priority instructions are detected, the processor is awakened to handle them, while maintaining energy savings during periods of only low-priority traffic

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Reliability

If all instructions are reported to the application processor regardless of priority, then no important instruction is missed, but the quantity of wake-up events increases significantly

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveinstruction coverageVSAvoidsleep state duration
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the reporting parameter from unconditional to conditional based on instruction priority. By introducing a priority threshold parameter, the system selectively reports only high-priority instructions, thereby maintaining essential instruction coverage while significantly extending sleep state duration and reducing wake-up events

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentEP4373170A1Application processor wakeup method and apparatus applied to mobile terminal
Publication Date: 2024.05.22 HUAWEI TECH CO LTD
  • EP4373170A1 patent drawingFigure 1~2
  • EP4373170A1 patent drawingFigure 3
  • EP4373170A1 patent drawingFigure 4~5

AI summary

Embodiments of this application disclose an application processor wakeup method and apparatus applied to a mobile terminal. In the method, whether the mobile terminal is in a preset first state is first detected. After it is determined that the mobile terminal is in the preset first state, a to-be-reported instruction that needs to be reported to an application processor and a priority of the to-be-reported instruction are obtained. When the priority of the to-be-reported instruction is higher than a preset priority, the to-be-reported instruction is reported to the application processor, to wake up the application processor, so that the application processor performs a corresponding operation. In the solution in the embodiments of this application, only when the to-be-reported instruction whose priority is higher than the preset priority is obtained, the to-be-reported instruction is reported to the application processor, to reduce a quantity of times of reporting instructions to the application processor and further reduce a quantity of times that the application processor obtains instructions, thereby avoiding frequent wakeup of the application processor. In this way, a problem in the prior art is resolved.