Latency reduction for transitions between active state and sleep state of an integrated circuit

Abstract

An apparatus and method for efficient power management of multiple integrated circuits. In various implementations, a computing system includes an integrated circuit with a security processor. The security processor determines the integrated circuit transitions to an active state from a sleep state that is not intended to maintain configuration information to return to the active state without restarting an operating system. In the sleep state, multiple components of the integrated circuit have a power supply reference level turned off, which provides low power consumption for the integrated circuit. The security processor performs the bootup operation using information stored in persistent on-chip memory. By not using information stored in off-chip memory, the security processor reduces the latency of the transition. The persistent on-chip memory utilizes synchronous random-access memory that receives a standby power supply reference level that continually supplies a voltage magnitude by not being turned off.