A dynamic voltage scaled microprocessor system

Author

Burd, Thomas D. ; Pering, Trevor A. ; Stratakos, Anthony J. ; Brodersen, Robert W.

Author_Institution

Berkeley Wireless Res. Centre, California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

Volume

35

Issue

11

fYear

2000

Firstpage

1571

Lastpage

1580

Abstract

A microprocessor system is presented in which the supply voltage and clock frequency can be dynamically varied so that the system can deliver high throughput when required while significantly extending battery life during the low speed periods. The system consists of a dc-dc switching regulator, an ARM V4 microprocessor with a 16-kB cache, a bank of 64-kB SRAM ICs, and an I/O interface IC. The four custom chips were fabricated in a standard 0.6-/spl mu/m 3-metal CMOS process. The system can dynamically vary the supply voltage from 1.2 to 3.8 V in less than 70 /spl mu/s. This provides a throughput range of 6-85 MIPS with an energy consumption of 0.54-5.6 mW/MIP yielding an effective energy efficiency as high as 26200 MIPS/W.

Keywords

CMOS digital integrated circuits; application specific integrated circuits; circuit feedback; clocks; integrated circuit design; low-power electronics; microprocessor chips; 0.54 to 5.6 mW; 0.6 mum; 1.2 to 3.8 V; 3-metal CMOS process; 6 to 85 MIPS; ARM V4 microprocessor; I/O interface IC; SRAM ICs; adaptive processor; battery life extension; clock frequency; custom chips; dc-dc switching regulator; dynamic supply voltage variation; dynamic voltage scaled microprocessor system; effective energy efficiency; energy consumption; high throughput; supply voltage; throughput range; voltage scheduler; Batteries; CMOS integrated circuits; CMOS process; Clocks; Dynamic voltage scaling; Frequency; Microprocessors; Random access memory; Regulators; Throughput;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.881202

Filename

881202