AMD Dynamic Boost Control Feature Set For Introduction In Linux 6.6

Back in April I pointed out some new AMD patches at the time for enabling a new "Dynamic Boost Control" feature that hasn't been widely talked about by AMD yet for allowing more frequency/power controls around Ryzen SoCs. But making this power/performance feature controversial is that it requires authentication with the AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP) for activation with user-space blobs for tapping this greater control of the hardware. This AMD Dynamic Boost Control feature now looks like it is ready for merging into Linux 6.6.

The AMD Dynamic Boost Control allows some unnamed Ryzen SoCs to send authenticated commands to the AMD security processor to in turn control certain SoC characteristics for improving the performance. User-space can exchange signed messages with the AMD PSP/CCP for reading and setting various frequency/power limits. The additional power/thermal controls for optimizing the SoC for greater performance is great but it's due to being tied into the AMD Platform Security Processor (PSP) / Cryptographic Co-Processor (CCP) is what has set off some Linux users since originally relaying news of this AMD Linux driver work.

After going through a few revisions, the AMD Dynamic Boost Control feature appears ready for introduction in the upcoming Linux 6.6 cycle. The AMD Dynamic Boost Control patches this week were queued into the cryptodev Git tree where all the crypto subsystem patches are queued until the next kernel merge window. This power/performance feature for AMD SoCs is making its way to the kernel via the crypto subsystem due to being tied into the AMD CCP driver.

AMD Dynamic Boost Control (DBC) requiring PSP authentication for setting or even reading the values has concerned some open-source enthusiasts.

This addition includes a very basic library and Python script for demonstrating some basic controls of AMD Dynamic Boost Control. This script though is basically a barebones script for testing/prototyping the ioctl interface and demonstrating an open-source user of this new kernel code. The script still relies on a signature being passed to the script for validation.

Details are still light on the AMD Dynamic Boost Control feature and the intentions around it, so will be interesting to see ultimately how this PSP-protected feature plays out.