Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/ – Input/output data processing – Peripheral monitoring
Patent
1997-06-25
1999-11-02
Lee, Thomas C.
Electrical computers and digital data processing systems: input/
Input/output data processing
Peripheral monitoring
714 47, 713501, 713340, G06F 108, G06F 1300
Patent
active
059788640
ABSTRACT:
A system and method for thermal overload detection and protection for a processor which allows the processor to run at near maximum potential for the vast majority of its execution life. This is effectuated by the provision of circuitry to detect when the processor has exceeded its thermal thresholds and which then causes the processor to automatically reduce the clock rate to a fraction of the nominal clock while execution continues. When the thermal condition has stabilized, the clock may be raised in a stepwise fashion back to the nominal clock rate. Throughout the period of cycling the clock frequency from nominal to minimum and back, the program continues to be executed. Also provided is a queue activity rise time detector and method to control the rate of acceleration of a functional unit from idle to full throttle by a localized stall mechanism at the boundary of each stage in the pipe. This mechanism can detect when an idle queue is suddenly overwhelmed with input such that over a short period of approximately 10-20 machine cycles, the queue activity rate has increased from idle to near stall threshold.
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Hetherington Ricky C.
Panwar Ramesh
Kubida William J.
Lee Thomas C.
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Wang Albert
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