Re: [PATCH v9 12/12] cpuidle/poll_state: Wait for need-resched via tif_need_resched_relaxed_wait()

From: Rafael J. Wysocki

Date: Tue Feb 10 2026 - 11:56:15 EST


On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 3:43 AM Ankur Arora <ankur.a.arora@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The inner loop in poll_idle() polls over the thread_info flags,
> waiting to see if the thread has TIF_NEED_RESCHED set. The loop
> exits once the condition is met, or if the poll time limit has
> been exceeded.
>
> To minimize the number of instructions executed in each iteration,
> the time check is rate-limited. In addition, each loop iteration
> executes cpu_relax() which on certain platforms provides a hint to
> the pipeline that the loop busy-waits, allowing the processor to
> reduce power consumption.
>
> Switch over to tif_need_resched_relaxed_wait() instead, since that
> provides exactly that.
>
> However, since we want to minimize power consumption in idle, building
> of cpuidle/poll_state.c continues to depend on CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_CPU_RELAX
> as that serves as an indicator that the platform supports an optimized
> version of tif_need_resched_relaxed_wait() (via
> smp_cond_load_acquire_timeout()).
>
> Cc: "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: linux-pm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Suggested-by: "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Ankur Arora <ankur.a.arora@xxxxxxxxxx>

This is generally fine with me, of course depending on how
tif_need_resched_relaxed_wait() will work, so conditional on reaching
an agreement with the arch and scheduler folks feel free to add

Acked-by: Rafael J. Wysocki (Intel) <rafael@xxxxxxxxxx>

to this one.

> ---
> Notes:
> - get rid of unnecessary variable assignments, casts etc
>
> drivers/cpuidle/poll_state.c | 21 +--------------------
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 20 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/cpuidle/poll_state.c b/drivers/cpuidle/poll_state.c
> index c7524e4c522a..7443b3e971ba 100644
> --- a/drivers/cpuidle/poll_state.c
> +++ b/drivers/cpuidle/poll_state.c
> @@ -6,41 +6,22 @@
> #include <linux/cpuidle.h>
> #include <linux/export.h>
> #include <linux/irqflags.h>
> -#include <linux/sched.h>
> -#include <linux/sched/clock.h>
> #include <linux/sched/idle.h>
> #include <linux/sprintf.h>
> #include <linux/types.h>
>
> -#define POLL_IDLE_RELAX_COUNT 200
> -
> static int __cpuidle poll_idle(struct cpuidle_device *dev,
> struct cpuidle_driver *drv, int index)
> {
> - u64 time_start;
> -
> - time_start = local_clock_noinstr();
> -
> dev->poll_time_limit = false;
>
> raw_local_irq_enable();
> if (!current_set_polling_and_test()) {
> - unsigned int loop_count = 0;
> u64 limit;
>
> limit = cpuidle_poll_time(drv, dev);
>
> - while (!need_resched()) {
> - cpu_relax();
> - if (loop_count++ < POLL_IDLE_RELAX_COUNT)
> - continue;
> -
> - loop_count = 0;
> - if (local_clock_noinstr() - time_start > limit) {
> - dev->poll_time_limit = true;
> - break;
> - }
> - }
> + dev->poll_time_limit = !tif_need_resched_relaxed_wait(limit);
> }
> raw_local_irq_disable();
>
> --