Prior to the Solaris 8 release, power management of devices was not automatic. After the Solaris 8 release, devices that export the pm-components property automatically use power management if autopm is enabled.
The framework is informed by the pm-components property which power levels are supported by each device.
The framework makes no assumptions about dependencies among the different components of a device. The device driver is responsible for saving and restoring hardware state as needed when changing power levels.
These changes enable the power management framework to deal with emerging device technology. Power management now results in greater power savings. The framework can detect automatically which devices can save power. The framework can use intermediate power states of the devices. A system can now meet energy consumption goals without powering down the entire system and without any functions.
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