Performance throttling to reduce IC power consumption

Details Performance throttling to reduce IC power consumption Performance throttling to reduce IC power consumption

1995-06-30

1998-02-17

Malzahn, David H.

Boots, shoes, and leggings

395750, G06F 132

Patent

active

057198004

ABSTRACT:
The power consumed within an integrated circuit (IC) is reduced without substantial impact on its performance for typical applications by throttling the performance of particular functional units within the IC. Artificial worst-case power consumption is reduced by throttling down the activity levels of long-duration sequences of high-power operations. The recent utilization levels of particular functional units within an IC are monitored--for example, by computing each functional unit's average duty cycle over its recent operating history. If this activity level is greater than a threshold, then the functional unit is operated in a reduced-power mode. The threshold value is set large enough to allow short bursts of high utilization to occur without impacting performance. The invention allows an integrated circuit to dynamically make the tradeoff between high-speed operation and low-power operation, by throttling back performance of localized functional units when their utilization exceeds a sustainable level. Additionally, this dynamic power/speed tradeoff can be optimized across multiple functional units within an IC or among multiple ICs within a system. Additionally, this dynamic power/speed tradeoff can be altered by providing software control over throttling parameters.

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patent: 5579524 (1996-11-01), Kikinis

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