Adaptive power control using timing canonicals

摘要

A plurality of digital circuits are manufactured from an identical circuit design. A power controller is operatively connected to the digital circuits, and a non-transitory storage medium is operatively connected to the power controller. The digital circuits are classified into different voltage bins, and each of the voltage bins has a current leakage limit. Each of the digital circuits has been previously tested to operate within a corresponding current leakage limit of a corresponding voltage bin into which each of the digital circuits has been classified. The non-transitory storage medium stores boundaries of the voltage bins as speed-binning test data. The power controller controls power-supply signals applied differently for each of the digital circuits based on which bin each of the digital circuit has been classified and the speed-binning test data.

主权项

1. A method of optimizing power usage in an integrated circuit design, said method comprising:
manufacturing integrated circuit devices according to an integrated circuit design using manufacturing equipment, said integrated circuit design producing integrated circuit devices that are identically designed and perform at different operating speeds caused by manufacturing process variations; determining an operating speed of each of said integrated circuit devices based on delay parameters applied to a canonical equation that evaluates different threshold voltage portions of each of said integrated circuit devices differently, each of said different threshold voltage portions of said integrated circuit devices operating at different threshold voltages; sorting said integrated circuit devices after manufacture into relatively slow integrated circuit devices and relatively fast integrated circuit devices based on said operating speed of each of said integrated circuit devices to classify said integrated circuit devices into different voltage bins, said relatively fast integrated circuit devices consuming more power than said relatively slow integrated circuit devices; and embedding voltage bin information in said integrated circuit devices based on which of said different voltage bins each of said integrated circuit devices has been classified, said voltage bin information controlling an operating voltage at which each of said integrated circuit devices are to be operated.