[PATCH v9 01/15] asm-generic: add barrier smp_cond_load_relaxed_timeout()

[Christoph Lameter (Ampere)]

On Thu, 7 Nov 2024, Ankur Arora wrote:

> > Calling the clock retrieval function repeatedly should be fine and is
> > typically done in user space as well as in kernel space for functions that
> > need to wait short time periods.
>
> The problem is that you might have multiple CPUs polling in idle
> for prolonged periods of time. And, so you want to minimize
> your power/thermal envelope.

On ARM that maps to YIELD which does not do anything for the power
envelope AFAICT. It switches to the other hyperthread.

> For instance see commit 4dc2375c1a4e "cpuidle: poll_state: Avoid
> invoking local_clock() too often" which originally added a similar
> rate limit to poll_idle() where they saw exactly that issue.

Looping w/o calling local_clock may increase the wait period etc.

For power saving most arches have special instructions like ARMS
WFE/WFET. These are then causing more accurate wait times than the looping
thing?