A General Power Management System

• Main Authors: Chin-Yu Chen, 陳俊裕
• Other Authors: Kuen-Jong Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1996
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/38782541680732645941

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 電機工程研究所 === 84 === Circuit design with power saving techniques is one of the most important issues for designers. Based on a well established power consumption model, power saving techniques can be divided into dynamic power dissipation saving techniques and static power dissipation saving techniques. Many "low-power" circuit designs focus on reducing dynamic power dissipation. On the other hand, saving energy by using power management techniques is an efficient way to reduce static power dissipation. In the thesis, basic devices and their designs for a general power management system are presented. The basic devices considered include activity monitors, clock counters, and switch control units. Circuits with the function of concurrent monitoring are discussed based on both voltage and current modes and are simulated by HSPICE. Several types of counters are discussed according to their counting capacity, area overhead, and power dissipation. The switch control units are responsible for receiving signals from the monitor and turning on or off the power supply according to the received signals. With these functional units, a general power management system with concurrent monitoring capacity is developed. One of the novel features in our system is that current monitoring for IDDQ and IDDT is employed. IDDQ testing can detect some faults resulting in large quiescent current, thus preventing unnecessary power dissipation. IDDT testing can monitor system activity in transient state. These techniques are used to implement the current mode activity monitor. Several built-in current sensors (BICSs) are developed to detect transient and quiescent currents. The detection speed, area overhead, and performance impact on the original circuits are analyzed. Finally, the integration of IDD testing and power management is discussed.