Percore

Percore is a term used in computing to describe approaches, measurements, or configurations that are specific to individual CPU cores. Although often written as per-core, some texts use the single word "percore" as a shorthand.

Per-core analysis refers to examining performance, power, or scheduling decisions at the granularity of a single core rather than the system as a whole.

Applications of percore concepts include per-core scheduling where an operating system assigns threads to specific cores; per-core dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) to adjust frequency and voltage per core; and thermal and power management techniques that throttle or isolate cores. Performance counters that track utilization, cache misses, or instructions per cycle per core are also examples of percore-oriented instrumentation.

In software engineering, per-core considerations influence parallel algorithms, thread affinity, and memory locality. Tools like perf, PAPI, Linux /proc statistics, or container orchestrators may report per-core metrics to help analyze and optimize workloads.

Benefits of percore-focused analysis or design include better workload isolation, improved cache efficiency, and more precise power budgeting. Challenges include the complexity of instrumentation, scheduling fragmentation, and non-uniform core performance due to turbo boosts or manufacturing variability.

Percore remains a descriptive term rather than a formal standard, and its precise meaning can vary by vendor, operating system, or research context.