Platform Environment Control Interface, abbreviated as PECI, is an Intel proprietary single wire serial interface that provides a communication channel between Intel processors and chipset components to external system management logic and thermal monitoring devices. Also, PECI provides an interface for external devices to read processor temperature, perform processor manageability functions, and manage processor interface tuning and diagnostics. Typically in server platforms, CPUs are the PECI slaves and PCH is the PECI master, meanwhile in client segment, CPU is usually the PECI slave and
EC/
BMC is the PECI master. PECI was introduced in 2006 with the
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
Core 2 Duo microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s.
Support for PECI was added to the
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...
version 5.18 in 2022.
Thermal monitoring details
While previous thermal management technologies have made use of
thermal diodes, PECI instead uses on-die digital thermal sensors (DTS). These sensors, after being calibrated at the factory, are able to provide digital data concerning processor
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer.
Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...
information. The PECI
bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
, allowing access to this data from
chipset
In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the mo ...
components, is a