High performance method for reduction of memory power consumption employing ram retention mode control with low latency and maximum granularity

Abstract

A power control system, method, and architecture are disclosed for a multi-bank memory which provides independent, concurrent memory access to at least one memory block in each memory bank by using observation circuits to monitor bus masters connected over bus master interface signals to an interconnect for memory access requests to the multi-bank memory and to provide notifications to a power control circuitry that a valid memory access request was issued by a bus master over the bus master interface, where the power control circuitry processes the notifications received from each observation circuit and generates therefrom power control signals that are provided directly to each memory block and to bypass the interconnect, thereby separately controlling a power state for each memory block with power-up control signals that arrive at each memory block at or before a memory access request sent over the interconnect.