Qualcomm Incorporated

Nitin Makhija

Vinod Chamarty

Alon Naveh

Sagar Koorapati

Mahadevamurty Nemani

Pradeep Kanapathipillai

Gaurav Sanjeev Kirtane

Pushkin Raj Pari

Adarsh Baraka Ravi

Manu Gulati

Jonathan Masters

Anubhav Mishra

Arun Sukheja

Power sources provide power in a range with a maximum supply voltage provided under zero-load current conditions. Power circuits in an IC receive and aggregate indications of load current from processor circuits in processor circuit clusters and, reduce power consumption in the IC during zero or low load current conditions by generating a voltage control signal to reduce the supply voltage. Reducing the no-load voltage also reduces stress on gate oxides of transistors in the IC to increase oxide longevity. Based on the aggregated load current indications, which is periodically updated, the no-load supply voltage may be incrementally reduced down to a voltage threshold over the course of multiple periods. In some examples, the power circuits receive throttle signals when the processor circuits are throttled due to a voltage droop, and such signals may cause the power circuits to generate a control signal to increase the no-load voltage.

Processors including power control circuits to reduce a no-load voltage to save power and increase longevity and related methods

Autonomously managing core cluster frequencies using performance statistics in processor devices is disclosed herein. In some aspects, a cluster power management circuit of a processor device collects Activity Management Unit (AMU) statistics for multiple processor cores for each of one or more frequency operating points over a time interval. Based on the AMU statistics, the cluster power management circuit generates a performance model representing processor performance as a function of frequency, and uses the performance model and a power consumption measurement to generate an energy-per-instruction (EI) model representing energy per instruction as a function of frequency. The cluster power management circuit then generates an advantage model based on a first rate of change of the performance model as a function of frequency and a second rate of change of the EI model as a function of frequency, and identifies a target frequency operating point based on the advantage model.

Autonomously managing core cluster frequencies using performance statistics in processor devices

The processor-based system includes a throttle request accumulate circuit to receive throttle requests, determine a highest or most aggressive throttle value among the throttle requests, and generate a throttle control signal configured to throttle activity in the plurality of processing circuits. Throttle requests have throttle values corresponding to a reduction in activity in at least a portion of the plurality of processing circuits and may correspond to a particular number of cycles of reduced activity in a window of cycles. In addition to reducing response time to local events or conditions compared to waiting for a hierarchical response, the throttle request accumulate circuit accumulates throttle requests from all circuits that adjust or throttle activity in the plurality of processing circuits, and ensures that the net effective throttle controlling activity in the processing circuits at any given time is based on the highest throttle value of those accumulated throttle requests.

Integrated circuits (IC) chips including throttle request accumulate circuits for controlling power consumed in processing circuits and related methods

An electronic system has a plurality of processing clusters including a first processing cluster. The first processing cluster further includes a plurality of processors and a power management processor. The power management processor obtains performance information about the plurality of processors, executes power instructions to transition a first processor of the plurality of processors from a first performance state to a second performance state different from the first performance state, and executes one or more debug instructions to perform debugging of a respective processor of the plurality of processors. The power instructions are executed in accordance with the obtained performance information and independently of respective performance states of other processors in the plurality of processors of the first processing cluster. In some implementations, the power management processor receives, from a system controller external to the plurality of processing clusters, a first power allocation for the first processing cluster.

Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) within processor clusters

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Nitin Makhija