Dynamically controlling a maximum operating voltage for a processor

摘要

A processor includes a plurality of cores, non-volatile storage 210 storing coefficients 212 and voltage calculation 220 logic to calculate a plurality of maximum operating voltage values each associated with a number of active cores of the plurality of cores, based at least in part on the coefficient values. The maximum voltage values 232 may be calculated as part of the processors initialisation and stored in a lookup table 230 associated with the number of active cores. Voltage determination logic 240 may consult the lookup table 230 based on the number of active cores and other operational parameters such as temperature, power consumption, electric design point (EDP) or thermal design point (TDP) to determine a voltage identifier (VID) to supply to a voltage regulator. The voltage determination logic can determine the VID to be the maximum voltage corresponding to the number of active cores or a lower voltage based on the maximum voltage and the other operational parameters. The processor may be operated at a higher maximum voltage when only one core is active thereby eliminating Vmax headroom so as to equalise the gate oxide failure rate regardless of the number of active cores.