Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

Ati Technologies Ulc

Krishna Sitaraman

Mihir Shaileshbhai Doctor

Stephen David Presant

Michael Foxcroft

Ali Ibrahim

George A W Guthrie

Jeffrey Herman

Jeff Herman

Shirley Pui Shan Lam

Alexander Shternshain

Brian D Emberling

Ashwini Dwarakanath

Seth Hendrickson

Jia An Huang

Briefly, a method and apparatus adjusts the power consumption level of an integrated circuit by dynamically scaling the clock frequency based on the real-time determined power consumption level. In one example, the method and apparatus changes an actual clock frequency of the integrated circuit to an effective clock frequency based on the maximum clock frequency and the difference between the threshold power consumption level and the actual power consumption level of the integrated circuit in the previous sampling interval. In one example, an effective clock frequency of the integrated circuit in the current sampling interval is determined. In one example, the difference between the maximum and effective clock frequencies in the current sampling interval is proportional to the difference between the threshold and actual power consumption levels in the previous sampling interval. The actual clock frequency of the integrated circuit is changed to the determined effective clock frequency.

Method and apparatus for adjusting power consumption level of an integrated circuit

Methods and apparatuses are provided for power control in a processor. The apparatus comprises a plurality of operational units arranged as a group of operational units. A power consumption monitor determines when cumulative power consumption of the group of operational units exceeds a threshold (e.g., either or both of the cumulative power threshold and the cumulative power rate threshold) during a time interval, after which a filter for issuing instructions to the group of operational units suspends instruction issuance to the group of operational units for the remainder of the time interval. The method comprises monitoring cumulative power consumption by a group of operational units within a processor over a time interval. If the cumulative power consumption of the group of operational units exceeds the threshold, instruction issuance to the group of operational units is suspended for the remainder of the time interval.

Processor with power control via instruction issuance

A device may generate a clock signal using spread-spectrum clocking. The spread-spectrum clocking may modulate a frequency of the clock signal to produce a plurality of frequencies for the clock signal during a modulation cycle. The device may receive an instruction to disable the spread-spectrum clocking, and may disable the spread spectrum clocking at the end of the modulation cycle.

Disabling spread-spectrum clock signal generation

A method and a phase-locked loop (PLL) for generating output clock signals with desired frequencies are described. The PLL is equipped with a ramp generator that increments or decrements a feedback divider value before providing it to a modulator. The modulator modulates the feedback divider value and provides the modulated value to a feedback divider of the PLL for performing frequency division.

Phase-locked loop frequency stepping

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Krishna Sitaraman