The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 13, 2003
Filed:
Sep. 24, 1999
Applicant:
Inventor:
Vivek Joshi, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Assignee:
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 1/32 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G06F 1/32 ;
Abstract
A mechanism is provided for reducing the power consumption of a register file by disabling unused register file read ports. A selected entry of the register file is hardwired to zero and the address of the selected entry is driven to the address decoder of the register file in response to a power-down condition. The power-down condition occurs when, for example, no valid address is driven to the read port, i.e. the read port is unused. For one embodiment of the invention, the selected entry is the zero entry of the register file, and the address lines are grounded when an address valid bit associated with the read port is not asserted.