An innovative local adaptive voltage scaling architecture for on-chip variability compensation

In this paper we propose a fine-grain Adaptive Voltage and Frequency Scaling (LAVFS) architecture to optimize energy efficiency in presence of in-die variability. For each System-on-Chip power domain, we use a Dynamic Voltage Scaling technique called `Vdd-Hopping´ as efficient as DC/DC power converters but much easier to integrate and control at fine-grain. Unlike previous AVS schemes, the supply voltages are fixed and the functional core frequencies are adjusted according to local variability. The hopping ratio is then dynamically determined to achieve an applicative performance target. The proposed Local AVFS architecture based on the dynamic hopping solution and its application to GALS architectures is proposed.