Intel Continues Prepping PECI Support For The Linux Kernel

PECI is a new one-wire bus interface being developed at Intel for communication between Intel CPUs and chipset components to external monitoring/control devices. The Linux support for this Platform Environment Control Interface continues to be worked out by Intel's open-source Linux kernel developers.

PECI can be used for processor and memory thermal management, thermal/power/error monitoring, processor interface tuning and diagnostics, and failure analysis. The Platform Environment Control Interface originates from the Intel Core 2 Duo days more than a decade ago but the functionality has built up since.

With the current work-in-progress Linux kernel patches, the PECI bus is exposed and with the initial patches is an ASpeed AST 24xx/25xx PECI driver and PECI cputemp/dimmtemp drivers. The PECI CPU temperature driver should work for Intel Xeon E5/E7 v3 CPUs and newer, including current Xeon Scalable CPUs.

The 12 current patches for the Intel PECI support within the Linux kernel are up to their v7 revision and looking like the support could soon reach the mainline kernel.