US 7,493,149 B1
Method and system for minimizing power consumption in mobile devices using cooperative adaptive voltage and threshold scaling
James T. Doyle, Nederland, Colo. (US); and Dragan Maksimovic, Boulder, Colo. (US)
Assigned to National Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. (US)
Filed on Mar. 26, 2002, as Appl. No. 10/106,428.
Int. Cl. H04M 1/73 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 455—574  [455/572; 455/550.1; 455/127.1; 455/343.5; 713/320; 713/322; 326/31; 326/33; 327/535] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for minimizing power consumption in a mobile device using cooperative adaptive voltage and threshold scaling, comprising:
receiving a supply voltage, a PMOS back bias voltage, and an NMOS back bias voltage;
receiving a clock signal;
propagating the clock signal through a timing comparison circuit;
measuring a delay in the propagation of the clock signal through the timing comparison circuit;
determining whether to request more power based on the measured delay of the propagation of the clock signal through the timing comparison circuit; and
sending a voltage control signal to request more power when a determination is made to request more power based on the output of the timing comparison circuit, wherein the timing comparison circuit comprises (i) a plurality of inverters and a NOR gate, the NOR gate receiving an output from a final one of the inverters and an inverted clock signal, (ii) a register that comprises a first flip-flop generating a first status signal and a second flip-flop generating a second status signal; the register coupled to at least two delay cells, the register receiving output signals from the two delay cells; and (iii) a decoder that comprises a decoder inverter, the decoder inverter inverting the first status signal to generate a first power control signal, the decoder further providing the second status signal as a second power control signal, and wherein at least one of the first power control signal and the second power control signal are used to create the voltage control signal.