• Automatically and dynamically adjust CPU clock speed based on the operating bandwidth requirements of your handheld device?
   
• Understand the differences in power consumption at 100MHz versus 400MHz?
   
• Determine the required computational bandwidth of your application software at different CPU clock speeds?
   
• Understand how battery life is affected by plugging in a PCMCIA peripheral?
   
• Reduce both computational bandwidth and power consumption while connecting to multiple peripheral devices?
  

With the latest in advanced power management and performance tuning built-in, the new version of BatterySmart enables you to fully optimize both the run-time performance and the battery life of your StrongARM and XScale based handheld and wireless devices.

Designed to help OEM developers comprehend and adjust the computational and battery specifications for their handheld device applications, the patent-pending BatterySmart software suite and application programming interface (API) - which are available on the Elf and Fingertip platforms and which are detailed in the BatterySmart white paper - include these state-of-the-art CPU and power management technologies:

• Startup CPU Speed Adjustment - At device startup, the BatterySmart software retrieves the desired base CPU clock speed and operating system timer tick interval and adjusts the core CPU clock speed and memory timings accordingly. Base CPU speed can be set from a low of 100MHz up to 400MHz, and timer tick interval can be adjusted to trade off device power consumption with device performance.
   
• Advanced Idle Mode - In addition to providing support for the standard CPU Idle modes, BatterySmart incorporates accurate OS kernel-level Idle measurements, which are used to measure CPU computational bandwidth and other parameters.
   
• Dynamic CPU Speed Adjustment - OEMs can set parameters that dictate run-time, on-the-fly adjustment of CPU clock speed. For example, parameters can be used to set the CPU for: full-speed always, low-speed always, or automatically adjusted based on performance.
   
• Performance-Tuned Core Software Drivers - Those software drivers that use CPU clock speed to set up timings (such as PCMCIA, Compact Flash, and LCD display drivers) are architected to dynamically adjust their settings at startup, as a function of base CPU clock speed.
   
• Optimized Peripheral Software Drivers - Serial port (RS-232, SPI, audio codec) software drivers access a kernel-level system-wide resource manager that is designed to intelligently share CPU hardware resources. The result is peripheral software drivers that reduce both power consumption and CPU computational bandwidth simultaneously, while allowing multiple peripherals to be active at the same time.

Additionally, developers of handhelds based on the Elf and Fingertip platforms automatically gain the advantages of improved power supply hardware designs that can substantially boost battery life.

BatterySmart is included in all Windows CE Development Platforms, IP licenses, and production boards. The white paper (pdf 47kb) provides more detailed information on the BatterySmart technologies and includes measurements of power consumption under a variety of operational scenarios.

BatterySmart Product Brochure (83kb)