ACCELERATING THE MICROPROCESSOR CORE WAKEUP BY PREDICTIVELY EXECUTING A SUBSET OF THE POWER-UP SEQUENCE

• US 20150082066A1
• Filed: 02/04/2014
• Published: 03/19/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GlobalFoundries, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bose, Pradip, Buyuktosunoglu, Alper, Jacobson, Hans, Zyuban, Victor
• Granted Patent: US 9,292,079 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/323
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/26 Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof for memories G11C
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

A mechanism is provided for an integrated circuit with power gating. A power header switch is configured to connect and disconnect any one of multiple circuits to a common voltage source, where a powered off circuit is disconnected from the common voltage source. A power-up sequencer includes an initial stages power-up component and a final stages power-up component. The final stages power-up component is configured to execute final stages of a power-up process for the powered off circuit, and the initial stages power-up component is configured to execute initial stages of the power-up process for the powered off circuit. The initial stages power-up component is activated in response to a predictive power-up request.

Claims

1. A method for an integrated circuit with power gating, the method comprising:

providing a power header switch to connect and disconnect any one of a plurality of circuits to a common voltage source, wherein a powered off circuit is disconnected from the common voltage source;

configuring a power-up sequencer to comprise an initial stages power-up component and a final stages power-up component, wherein the final stages power-up component is configured to execute final stages of a power-up process for the powered off circuit; and

configuring the initial stages power-up component to execute initial stages of the power-up process for the powered off circuit, the initial stages power-up component being activated in response to a predictive power-up request.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring the initial stages power-up component to provide a partial wakeup of the powered off circuit.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising configuring the initial stages power-up component to turn on partial functionality of the powered off circuit.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the powered off circuit comprises an array of memory cells, an automatic built-in self test circuit, and other circuitry that reads and executes program instructions;

and

wherein the partial functionality turned on by the initial stages power-up component includes at least one of powering up the array of memory cells and powering up the automatic built-in self test circuit.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the power header switch comprises initial stages through last stages of header transistors connectable to the powered off circuit.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the initial stages power-up component is configured to turn on the initial stages of the header transistors for the powered off circuit without turning on the last stages of the header transistors all of which is in advance to a demand request to power-up the powered off circuit.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the demand request to power-up the powered off circuit is to fully power up the powered off circuit by turning on all the initial stages through the last stages of the header transistors in a sequential power-up process.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the predictive power-up request predictively turns on the initial stages of the header transistors for the powered off circuit without knowledge of and prior to a demand request to power-up fully the powered off circuit.