Application-aware scaling governor for wearable devices

Application characteristics include useful information that enhances power management techniques; for instance, a QoS-sensitive application does not need to be run any faster, as long as its QoS is preserved. In recently emerged wearable devices, power management techniques can easily utilize the characteristics, since the number of applications is limited and almost all applications are downloaded from one single application market. In this paper, we analyze the power savings by application-aware scaling governor that manages dynamic voltage frequency scaling (DVFS). Our real measurement results show that the application-aware scaling governor reduces system-wide energy consumption (12% on average) and enhances the performance (10% on average), compared to the conventional scaling governors in case of performance-sensitive applications. In addition, the application-aware scaling governor saves power (10% on average) without any noticeable QoS degradation in case of QoS-sensitive applications.