JP-2026074527-A - Electronic equipment and control methods

Abstract

[Challenge] To enable electronic devices to perform better in accordance with the power supply capacity of the battery. [Solution] An electronic device comprising a host system, a first controller, a second controller, and a battery module, wherein during the startup process of the host system, the second controller determines the power supply capacity from the battery module based on the voltage of the battery module, and the first controller determines the clock frequency of the host system based on the supply capacity. [Selection Diagram] Figure 2

Inventors

• 徳野 真弘
• 川上 淳平
• 渡邉 寛之

Assignees

• レノボ・シンガポール・プライベート・リミテッド

Dates

Publication Date

20260507

Application Date

20241021

Claims (6)

1. An electronic device comprising a host system, a first controller, a second controller, and a battery module, During the startup process of the host system, The second controller is, The power supply capacity from the battery module is determined based on the voltage of the battery module. The first controller is, An electronic device that determines the clock frequency of the host system based on the aforementioned supply capacity.
2. The second controller performs a process to determine the supply capacity, The first controller performs the process of determining the clock frequency, The electronic device according to claim 1, which repeats at predetermined intervals.
3. The second controller is, Based on the voltage, it is determined whether or not to stop the discharge of the battery module. The first controller is, The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein when it is determined that the discharge of the battery module has stopped, a clock frequency lower than a predetermined standard clock frequency is set as the clock frequency.
4. The second controller is, Based on the voltage and temperature of the battery module, the dischargeable power, which is the power that can be discharged from the battery module, is estimated. The first controller is, When the dischargeable power falls below a predetermined threshold for dischargeable power, The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the clock frequency is set to a clock frequency lower than a predetermined standard clock frequency.
5. The first controller is, When detecting a DC power source separate from the aforementioned battery module, The electronic device according to claim 3, wherein the standard clock frequency is set as the clock frequency regardless of the supply capacity.
6. A control method for an electronic device comprising a host system, a first controller, a second controller, and a battery module, During the startup process of the host system, The second controller is, The power supply capacity from the battery module is determined based on the voltage of the battery module. The first controller is, A control method for determining the clock frequency of the host system based on the supply capacity.

Description

This application relates to electronic equipment and control methods, such as the control of the clock frequency of a processor. Portable electronic devices, including notebook personal computers (sometimes referred to as "notebook PCs"), are equipped with a processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a battery. The processor consumes power stored in the battery to perform the main functions of the electronic device, even without a constant external power supply. Generally, the amount of power discharged from the battery decreases as the temperature drops. In low-temperature environments, electronic devices cannot perform to their expected level. Therefore, a lower limit of operating temperature (for example, 0 to 10°C) is defined. Therefore, if the startup temperature is lower than the predetermined lower limit of the operating temperature, the functionality of the electronic device may be limited. For example, the electrical device described in Patent Document 1 includes a microcontroller, and when the temperature detected by the temperature sensor at system startup falls below the guaranteed operating temperature, it operates the CPU at a lower frequency clock than normal and initiates a self-test operation. Japanese Patent Publication No. 2012-177968 This diagram shows an example configuration of the electronic device according to this embodiment.This block diagram shows an example configuration of the battery pack according to this embodiment.This flowchart shows a first example of the battery status monitoring process of the BMU according to this embodiment.This flowchart shows a first example of system startup control for the EC according to this embodiment.This flowchart shows a second example of the battery status monitoring process of the BMU according to this embodiment.This flowchart shows a second example of system startup control for the EC according to this embodiment.This flowchart shows a second example of EC system startup control related to the comparative example. Hereinafter, embodiments of the present application will be described with reference to the drawings. First, an example of the configuration of the electronic device 1 according to the present application will be described. Figure 1 is a block diagram showing an example configuration of the electronic device 1 according to this embodiment. In the example shown in Figure 1, the electronic device 1 is configured as a general-purpose PC. The electronic device 1 comprises a host system 10, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 22, storage 23, a display 24, a communication module 25, an input/output interface 26, an EC 31, an input device 32, a power supply circuit 33, a battery pack 34, and a power switch 36. The host system 10 is the core computer system of the electronic device 1. The host system 10 comprises a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11, main memory 12, and a chipset 21. In this application, the hardware constituting the host system 10 may be referred to as the "host device." The CPU 11 controls the operation of the entire electronic device 1. That is, the CPU 11 is a core processing unit (processor) that executes arithmetic processing instructed by various commands written in the software (program). The operation of the CPU 11 includes reading and writing data to storage media such as the main memory 12 and storage 23, reading data from the ROM 22, and input/output with other devices. Programs executed by the CPU 11 include, for example, the OS (Operating System), firmware, device drivers (sometimes simply referred to as "drivers" in this application), utility programs, and application programs (sometimes simply referred to as "applications" or "apps" in this application). In this application, the execution of processing instructed by commands written in a program is sometimes referred to as "executing a program" or "program execution." Main memory 12 is a writable memory used as a reading area for the CPU 11's executable program, or as a work area for writing processing data for the executable program. Main memory 12 is composed of, for example, multiple DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips. The CPU 11 and main memory 12 constitute the minimum hardware required to form the host system 10. The chipset 21 includes multiple controllers and is capable of connecting to multiple devices for input and output of various types of data. The controllers on the chipset 21 may be, for example, USB (Universal Serial Bus), SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) bus, PCI-Express bus, etc. In the example shown in Figure 1, the chipset 21 is connected to the ROM 22, storage 23, display 24, communication module 25, input/output interface 26, and EC31. ROM22 primarily stores firmware. The firmware stored in ROM22 includes the BIOS and other firmware specific to individual devices. ROM22 is composed of rewritable non-volatile memory such as EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and flash ROM. Storage 23 is an auxiliary st