Method for reducing power consumption through dynamic memory storage inversion

摘要

A method and apparatus for reducing the power needed in a computing system to refresh dynamic random access memory. In one embodiment of the invention, data to be stored to DRAM is evaluated one word at a time. For each eight-bit data word, if the number of ones is more than four, each bit of the data word is inverted and a data inversion indicator (DII) bit is set to logic one, to indicate that the data has been inverted. This allows for the data to be stored accurately with the minimum number of ones present. Because of the power required to refresh ones stored in DRAM, storing a minimum number of ones will reduce power consumption. A read of the data will determine if the data had been inverted upon storage and if so will revert the data to its original form.