.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
.. include:: <isonum.txt>

===============================================
``amd-pstate`` CPU Performance Scaling Driver
===============================================

:Copyright: |copy| 2021 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

:Author: Huang Rui <ray.huang@amd.com>


Introduction
===================

``amd-pstate`` is the AMD CPU performance scaling driver that introduces a
new CPU frequency control mechanism on modern AMD APU and CPU series in
Linux kernel. The new mechanism is based on Collaborative Processor
Performance Control (CPPC) which provides finer grain frequency management
than legacy ACPI hardware P-States. Current AMD CPU/APU platforms are using
the ACPI P-states driver to manage CPU frequency and clocks with switching
only in 3 P-states. CPPC replaces the ACPI P-states controls and allows a
flexible, low-latency interface for the Linux kernel to directly
communicate the performance hints to hardware.

``amd-pstate`` leverages the Linux kernel governors such as ``schedutil``,
``ondemand``, etc. to manage the performance hints which are provided by
CPPC hardware functionality that internally follows the hardware
specification (for details refer to AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual
Volume 2: System Programming [1]_). Currently, ``amd-pstate`` supports basic
frequency control function according to kernel governors on some of the
Zen2 and Zen3 processors, and we will implement more AMD specific functions
in future after we verify them on the hardware and SBIOS.


AMD CPPC Overview
=======================

Collaborative Processor Performance Control (CPPC) interface enumerates a
continuous, abstract, and unit-less performance value in a scale that is
not tied to a specific performance state / frequency. This is an ACPI
standard [2]_ which software can specify application performance goals and
hints as a relative target to the infrastructure limits. AMD processors
provide the low latency register model (MSR) instead of an AML code
interpreter for performance adjustments. ``amd-pstate`` will initialize a
``struct cpufreq_driver`` instance, ``amd_pstate_driver``, with the callbacks
to manage each performance update behavior. ::

 Highest Perf ------>+-----------------------+                         +-----------------------+
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |          Max Perf  ---->|                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
 Nominal Perf ------>+-----------------------+                         +-----------------------+
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |      Desired Perf  ---->|                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
  Lowest non-        |                       |                         |                       |
  linear perf ------>+-----------------------+                         +-----------------------+
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |       Lowest perf  ---->|                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
  Lowest perf ------>+-----------------------+                         +-----------------------+
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
                     |                       |                         |                       |
          0   ------>+-----------------------+                         +-----------------------+

                                     AMD P-States Performance Scale


.. _perf_cap:

AMD CPPC Performance Capability
--------------------------------

Highest Performance (RO)
.........................

This is the absolute maximum performance an individual processor may reach,
assuming ideal conditions. This performance level may not be sustainable
for long durations and may only be achievable if other platform components
are in a specific state; for example, it may require other processors to be in
an idle state. This would be equivalent to the highest frequencies
supported by the processor.

Nominal (Guaranteed) Performance (RO)
......................................

This is the maximum sustained performance level of the processor, assuming
ideal operating conditions. In the absence of an external constraint (power,
thermal, etc.), this is the performance level the processor is expected to
be able to maintain continuously. All cores/processors are expected to be
able to sustain their nominal performance state simultaneously.

Lowest non-linear Performance (RO)
...................................

This is the lowest performance level at which nonlinear power savings are
achieved, for example, due to the combined effects of voltage and frequency
scaling. Above this threshold, lower performance levels should be generally
more energy efficient than higher performance levels. This register
effectively conveys the most efficient performance level to ``amd-pstate``.

Lowest Performance (RO)
........................

This is the absolute lowest performance level of the processor. Selecting a
performance level lower than the lowest nonlinear performance level may
cause an efficiency penalty but should reduce the instantaneous power
consumption of the processor.

AMD CPPC Performance Control
------------------------------

``amd-pstate`` passes performance goals through these registers. The
register drives the behavior of the desired performance target.

Minimum requested performance (RW)
...................................

``amd-pstate`` specifies the minimum allowed performance level.

Maximum requested performance (RW)
...................................

``amd-pstate`` specifies a limit the maximum performance that is expected
to be supplied by the hardware.

Desired performance target (RW)
...................................

``amd-pstate`` specifies a desired target in the CPPC performance scale as
a relative number. This can be expressed as percentage of nominal
performance (infrastructure max). Below the nominal sustained performance
level, desired performance expresses the average performance level of the
processor subject to hardware. Above the nominal performance level,
the processor must provide at least nominal performance requested and go higher
if current operating conditions allow.

Energy Performance Preference (EPP) (RW)
.........................................

This attribute provides a hint to the hardware if software wants to bias
toward performance (0x0) or energy efficiency (0xff).


Key Governors Support
=======================

``amd-pstate`` can be used with all the (generic) scaling governors listed
by the ``scaling_available_governors`` policy attribute in ``sysfs``. Then,
it is responsible for the configuration of policy objects corresponding to
CPUs and provides the ``CPUFreq`` core (and the scaling governors attached
to the policy objects) with accurate information on the maximum and minimum
operating frequencies supported by the hardware. Users can check the
``scaling_cur_freq`` information comes from the ``CPUFreq`` core.

``amd-pstate`` mainly supports ``schedutil`` and ``ondemand`` for dynamic
frequency control. It is to fine tune the processor configuration on
``amd-pstate`` to the ``schedutil`` with CPU CFS scheduler. ``amd-pstate``
registers the adjust_perf callback to implement performance update behavior
similar to CPPC. It is initialized by ``sugov_start`` and then populates the
CPU's update_util_data pointer to assign ``sugov_update_single_perf`` as the
utilization update callback function in the CPU scheduler. The CPU scheduler
will call ``cpufreq_update_util`` and assigns the target performance according
to the ``struct sugov_cpu`` that the utilization update belongs to.
Then, ``amd-pstate`` updates the desired performance according to the CPU
scheduler assigned.


Processor Support
=======================

The ``amd-pstate`` initialization will fail if the ``_CPC`` entry in the ACPI
SBIOS does not exist in the detected processor. It uses ``acpi_cpc_valid``
to check the existence of ``_CPC``. All Zen based processors support the legacy
ACPI hardware P-States function, so when ``amd-pstate`` fails initialization,
the kernel will fall back to initialize the ``acpi-cpufreq`` driver.

There are two types of hardware implementations for ``amd-pstate``: one is
`Full MSR Support <perf_cap_>`_ and another is `Shared Memory Support
<perf_cap_>`_. It can use the :c:macro:`X86_FEATURE_CPPC` feature flag to
indicate the different types. (For details, refer to the Processor Programming
Reference (PPR) for AMD Family 19h Model 51h, Revision A1 Processors [3]_.)
``amd-pstate`` is to register different ``static_call`` instances for different
hardware implementations.

Currently, some of the Zen2 and Zen3 processors support ``amd-pstate``. In the
future, it will be supported on more and more AMD processors.

Full MSR Support
-----------------

Some new Zen3 processors such as Cezanne provide the MSR registers directly
while the :c:macro:`X86_FEATURE_CPPC` CPU feature flag is set.
``amd-pstate`` can handle the MSR register to implement the fast switch
function in ``CPUFreq`` that can reduce the latency of frequency control in
interrupt context. The functions with a ``pstate_xxx`` prefix represent the
operations on MSR registers.

Shared Memory Support
----------------------

If the :c:macro:`X86_FEATURE_CPPC` CPU feature flag is not set, the
processor supports the shared memory solution. In this case, ``amd-pstate``
uses the ``cppc_acpi`` helper methods to implement the callback functions
that are defined on ``static_call``. The functions with the ``cppc_xxx`` prefix
represent the operations of ACPI CPPC helpers for the shared memory solution.


AMD P-States and ACPI hardware P-States always can be supported in one
processor. But AMD P-States has the higher priority and if it is enabled
with :c:macro:`MSR_AMD_CPPC_ENABLE` or ``cppc_set_enable``, it will respond
to the request from AMD P-States.


User Space Interface in ``sysfs``
==================================

``amd-pstate`` exposes several global attributes (files) in ``sysfs`` to
control its functionality at the system level. They are located in the
``/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policyX/`` directory and affect all CPUs. ::

 root@hr-test1:/home/ray# ls /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/*amd*
 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/amd_pstate_highest_perf
 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/amd_pstate_lowest_nonlinear_freq
 /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/amd_pstate_max_freq


``amd_pstate_highest_perf / amd_pstate_max_freq``

Maximum CPPC performance and CPU frequency that the driver is allowed to
set, in percent of the maximum supported CPPC performance level (the highest
performance supported in `AMD CPPC Performance Capability <perf_cap_>`_).
In some ASICs, the highest CPPC performance is not the one in the ``_CPC``
table, so we need to expose it to sysfs. If boost is not active, but
still supported, this maximum frequency will be larger than the one in
``cpuinfo``.
This attribute is read-only.

``amd_pstate_lowest_nonlinear_freq``

The lowest non-linear CPPC CPU frequency that the driver is allowed to set,
in percent of the maximum supported CPPC performance level. (Please see the
lowest non-linear performance in `AMD CPPC Performance Capability
<perf_cap_>`_.)
This attribute is read-only.

Other performance and frequency values can be read back from
``/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/acpi_cppc/``, see :ref:`cppc_sysfs`.


``amd-pstate`` vs ``acpi-cpufreq``
======================================

On the majority of AMD platforms supported by ``acpi-cpufreq``, the ACPI tables
provided by the platform firmware are used for CPU performance scaling, but
only provide 3 P-states on AMD processors.
However, on modern AMD APU and CPU series, hardware provides the Collaborative
Processor Performance Control according to the ACPI protocol and customizes this
for AMD platforms. That is, fine-grained and continuous frequency ranges
instead of the legacy hardware P-states. ``amd-pstate`` is the kernel
module which supports the new AMD P-States mechanism on most of the future AMD
platforms. The AMD P-States mechanism is the more performance and energy
efficiency frequency management method on AMD processors.

Kernel Module Options for ``amd-pstate``
=========================================

``shared_mem``
Use a module param (shared_mem) to enable related processors manually with
**amd_pstate.shared_mem=1**.
Due to the performance issue on the processors with `Shared Memory Support
<perf_cap_>`_, we disable it presently and will re-enable this by default
once we address performance issue with this solution.

To check whether the current processor is using `Full MSR Support <perf_cap_>`_
or `Shared Memory Support <perf_cap_>`_ : ::

  ray@hr-test1:~$ lscpu | grep cppc
  Flags:                           fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_pstate ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid cqm rdt_a rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local clzero irperf xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd cppc arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif v_spec_ctrl umip pku ospke vaes vpclmulqdq rdpid overflow_recov succor smca fsrm

If the CPU flags have ``cppc``, then this processor supports `Full MSR Support
<perf_cap_>`_. Otherwise, it supports `Shared Memory Support <perf_cap_>`_.


``cpupower`` tool support for ``amd-pstate``
===============================================

``amd-pstate`` is supported by the ``cpupower`` tool, which can be used to dump
frequency information. Development is in progress to support more and more
operations for the new ``amd-pstate`` module with this tool. ::

 root@hr-test1:/home/ray# cpupower frequency-info
 analyzing CPU 0:
   driver: amd-pstate
   CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
   CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
   maximum transition latency: 131 us
   hardware limits: 400 MHz - 4.68 GHz
   available cpufreq governors: ondemand conservative powersave userspace performance schedutil
   current policy: frequency should be within 400 MHz and 4.68 GHz.
                   The governor "schedutil" may decide which speed to use
                   within this range.
   current CPU frequency: Unable to call hardware
   current CPU frequency: 4.02 GHz (asserted by call to kernel)
   boost state support:
     Supported: yes
     Active: yes
     AMD PSTATE Highest Performance: 166. Maximum Frequency: 4.68 GHz.
     AMD PSTATE Nominal Performance: 117. Nominal Frequency: 3.30 GHz.
     AMD PSTATE Lowest Non-linear Performance: 39. Lowest Non-linear Frequency: 1.10 GHz.
     AMD PSTATE Lowest Performance: 15. Lowest Frequency: 400 MHz.


Diagnostics and Tuning
=======================

Trace Events
--------------

There are two static trace events that can be used for ``amd-pstate``
diagnostics. One of them is the ``cpu_frequency`` trace event generally used
by ``CPUFreq``, and the other one is the ``amd_pstate_perf`` trace event
specific to ``amd-pstate``.  The following sequence of shell commands can
be used to enable them and see their output (if the kernel is
configured to support event tracing). ::

 root@hr-test1:/home/ray# cd /sys/kernel/tracing/
 root@hr-test1:/sys/kernel/tracing# echo 1 > events/amd_cpu/enable
 root@hr-test1:/sys/kernel/tracing# cat trace
 # tracer: nop
 #
 # entries-in-buffer/entries-written: 47827/42233061   #P:2
 #
 #                                _-----=> irqs-off
 #                               / _----=> need-resched
 #                              | / _---=> hardirq/softirq
 #                              || / _--=> preempt-depth
 #                              ||| /     delay
 #           TASK-PID     CPU#  ||||   TIMESTAMP  FUNCTION
 #              | |         |   ||||      |         |
          <idle>-0       [015] dN...  4995.979886: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=15 changed=false fast_switch=true
          <idle>-0       [007] d.h..  4995.979893: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=7 changed=false fast_switch=true
             cat-2161    [000] d....  4995.980841: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=0 changed=false fast_switch=true
            sshd-2125    [004] d.s..  4995.980968: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=4 changed=false fast_switch=true
          <idle>-0       [007] d.s..  4995.980968: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=7 changed=false fast_switch=true
          <idle>-0       [003] d.s..  4995.980971: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=3 changed=false fast_switch=true
          <idle>-0       [011] d.s..  4995.980996: amd_pstate_perf: amd_min_perf=85 amd_des_perf=85 amd_max_perf=166 cpu_id=11 changed=false fast_switch=true

The ``cpu_frequency`` trace event will be triggered either by the ``schedutil`` scaling
governor (for the policies it is attached to), or by the ``CPUFreq`` core (for the
policies with other scaling governors).


Tracer Tool
-------------

``amd_pstate_tracer.py`` can record and parse ``amd-pstate`` trace log, then
generate performance plots. This utility can be used to debug and tune the
performance of ``amd-pstate`` driver. The tracer tool needs to import intel
pstate tracer.

Tracer tool located in ``linux/tools/power/x86/amd_pstate_tracer``. It can be
used in two ways. If trace file is available, then directly parse the file
with command ::

 ./amd_pstate_trace.py [-c cpus] -t <trace_file> -n <test_name>

Or generate trace file with root privilege, then parse and plot with command ::

 sudo ./amd_pstate_trace.py [-c cpus] -n <test_name> -i <interval> [-m kbytes]

The test result can be found in ``results/test_name``. Following is the example
about part of the output. ::

 common_cpu  common_secs  common_usecs  min_perf  des_perf  max_perf  freq    mperf   apef    tsc       load   duration_ms  sample_num  elapsed_time  common_comm
 CPU_005     712          116384        39        49        166       0.7565  9645075 2214891 38431470  25.1   11.646       469         2.496         kworker/5:0-40
 CPU_006     712          116408        39        49        166       0.6769  8950227 1839034 37192089  24.06  11.272       470         2.496         kworker/6:0-1264


Reference
===========

.. [1] AMD64 Architecture Programmer's Manual Volume 2: System Programming,
       https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/24593.pdf

.. [2] Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification,
       https://uefi.org/sites/default/files/resources/ACPI_Spec_6_4_Jan22.pdf

.. [3] Processor Programming Reference (PPR) for AMD Family 19h Model 51h, Revision A1 Processors
       https://www.amd.com/system/files/TechDocs/56569-A1-PUB.zip