REDUCING POWER CONSUMPTION IN A RECEIVER

• US 20070291672A1
• Filed: 06/08/2006
• Published: 12/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Maxlinear Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Metalink Ltd.
• Inventors: Kochman, Yuval, Penso, Moshe
• Granted Patent: US 7,643,439 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/311
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0261 managing power supply demand, e.g. depending on battery level
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Method and system for reducing the power consumption in a receiver. A power consumption control module reconfigures the receiver for every packet received by the receiver, by setting the receiver'"'"'s modules to an optimal mode of operation from a power consumption perspective, based on parameters extracted from each packet header.

Claims

1. A method for reducing power consumption in a receiver, said system comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving parameters relating to a packet;

(b) determining modes of operations corresponding to said parameters;

(c) configuring at least one receiver module to a low power consumption mode of operation in accordance with said parameters.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein step (a) further comprises:

computing power consumption performance of said receiver for each power mode in accordance with received parameters.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein step (a) further comprises:

computing performance necessary to comply with the communication protocol for the received parameters.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein step (b) further comprises:

producing a valid power modes list by comparing computed power consumption performance with computed performance.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein step (b) further comprises:

choosing the valid power mode with the minimal value of power consumption from said list.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein said receiver is a wireless local area network (WLAN) receiver.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein said receiver is configured to operate within an environment of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) transmission.

8. A system for reducing power consumption in a receiver, said system comprising:

a plurality of receiver modules; and

a power consumption control module;

wherein said power consumption control module is connected to at least one said receiver modules; and

wherein at least one of said plurality of receiver modules have at least two modes of operation; and

wherein said power consumption control module is configured to receive packet parameters and set said plurality of receiver modules to the corresponding mode of operation wherein reduction of power consumption is achieved.

9. The system according to claim 8 wherein one of said receiver modules is a digital signal processing (DSP) module;

and

wherein said power consumption control nodule is connected to said DSP module; and

wherein said power consumption control module is configured to receive packet header parameters from said DSP module and set said plurality of receiver modules and said DSP module to the corresponding mode of operation wherein reduction of power consumption is achieved.

10. The system according to claim 8 wherein said system is configured to operate in a wireless local area network (WLAN) environment.

11. The system according to claim 8 wherein said system is configured to operate in a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) transmission.

12. The system according to claim 11 wherein at least one receiver module comprises a MIMO slicer, and wherein reduction of power consumption in said MIMO slicer is achieved by setting a mode of operation in which a sub optimal MIMO slicing is performed, and said sub optimal MIMO slicing comprises a MIMO channel equalizing followed by a simple slicing.

13. The system according to claim 9 wherein said reduction of power consumption in said DSP module is achieved by setting a mode of operation which limits computational intensive functionalities for some packet processing sessions.

14. The system according to claim 9 wherein said reduction of power consumption in said DSP module is achieved by setting a mode of operation in which the least significant bits are disabled.

15. The system according to claim 8 wherein said receiver modules include a Radio Frequency (RF) module comprising at least one differential amplifier and wherein reduction of power consumption in said RF module is achieved by setting a mode of operation in which the bias currents of said differential amplifiers are lowered.

16. The system according to claim 8 wherein said receiver modules include an analog module comprising differential amplifiers and wherein reduction of power consumption in said analog module is achieved by setting a mode of operation in which the bias currents of said differential amplifiers is lowered.

17. The system according to claim 8 wherein said receiver modules include an analog to digital converter (ADC) module comprising differential amplifiers and wherein reduction of power consumption in said ADC module is achieved by setting a mode of operation in which the bias currents of said differential amplifiers is lowered.

18. The system according to claim 8 wherein one of the operation of said system is to perform channel tracking and wherein said channel tracking is turned off whenever a packet is being processed by said system.

19. The system according to claim 8 wherein said receiver modules include an antenna module comprising a set of at least one antenna and wherein reduction of power consumption is achieved by setting a mode of operation in which the number of antennas used is variable.