ROTATING VOLTAGE CONTROL

• US 20150177796A1
• Filed: 12/19/2013
• Published: 06/25/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bose, Pradip, Buyuktosunoglu, Alper, Jacobson, Hans M., Zyuban, Victor
• Granted Patent: US 9,323,302 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/26 Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof for memories G11C
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3296 by lowering the supply or operating voltage
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

According to one embodiment, a system is provided that includes at least one power gated component and two or more power switch transistors configured to provide one or more conductive paths between a common power supply rail, the at least one power gated component, and a ground. The two or more power switch transistors each include a source terminal, a drain terminal, and a gate terminal configured to control current flow between the source and drain terminals. The system also includes a rotating voltage control coupled to the gate terminals and configured to apply a sequence of control signals rotating between an on-state and an off-state to each of the gate terminals while the at least one power gated component is turned on. A switch activation ratio level is programmable to set a number of power switch transistors in the on-state relative to a total number of power switch transistors.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

at least one power gated component;

two or more power switch transistors configured to provide one or more conductive paths between a common power supply rail, the at least one power gated component, and a ground, the two or more power switch transistors each comprising a source terminal, a drain terminal, and a gate terminal configured to control current flow between the source and drain terminals; and

a rotating voltage control coupled to the gate terminals of the two or more power switch transistors and configured to apply a sequence of control signals rotating between an on-state and an off-state to each of the gate terminals while the at least one power gated component is turned on, and a switch activation ratio level of the rotating voltage control is programmable to set a number of the two or more power switch transistors in the on-state relative to a total number of the two or more power switch transistors.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the rotating voltage control further comprises a rotation controller configured to rotate the two or more power switch transistors between the on-state and the off-state according to a programmable rotation interval defining a switch activation duty level as a ratio of time intervals that the on-state and the off-state are alternatively applied to the gate terminal of one of the two or more power switch transistors.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the sequence of control signals applied to the gate terminals is held in a power vector as logical zeros and ones that correspond to the on-state and the off-state, and rotates over a period of time such that each of the two or more power switch transistors alternates between the on-state and the off-state over the period of time.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein a number of the logical zeros and ones in the power vector remains fixed while the power vector rotates over the period of time.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the switch activation ratio level is controllably set individually for the at least one power gated component based on an amount of current drawn such that during time intervals with higher current draw the switch activation ratio level is increased, and during time intervals with lower current draw the switch activation ratio level is decreased.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein the programmable rotation interval is controllably set individually for the at least one power gated component depending on an amount of current passing through one or more of the power switch transistors in the on-state such that during time intervals with higher current the programmable rotation interval is decreased, and during time intervals with lower current the programmable rotation interval is increased.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the switch activation ratio level is set based on one or more of:

a power proxy, an activity counter, a current measurement, a power measurement, and a thermal measurement.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein the programmable rotation interval is set based on one or more of:

a power proxy, an activity counter, a current measurement, a power measurement, and a thermal measurement.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one power gated component is at least one core of a multi-core processing chip.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one power gated component is at least one processing element of an active memory device, the active memory device comprising a plurality of memory stacks associated with the at least one processing element.

11. A method for rotating voltage control in a system comprising at least one power gated component and two or more power switch transistors configured to provide one or more conductive paths between a common power supply rail, the at least one power gated component, and a ground, the two or more power switch transistors each comprising a source terminal, a drain terminal, and a gate terminal configured to control current flow between the source and drain terminals, the method comprising:

establishing a switch activation ratio level to set a number of the two or more power switch transistors in an on-state relative to a total number of the two or more power switch transistors; and

applying a sequence of control signals based on the switch activation ratio level to set and rotate the on-state and an off-state to each of the gate terminals of the two or more power switch transistors while the at least one power gated component is turned on.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

rotating the two or more power switch transistors between the on-state and the off-state according to a programmable rotation interval defining a switch activation duty level as a ratio of time intervals that the on-state and the off-state are alternatively applied to the gate terminal of one of the two or more power switch transistors.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the sequence of control signals applied to the gate terminals is held in a power vector of logical zeros and ones that correspond to the on-state and the off-state, and rotates over a period of time such that each of the two or more power switch transistors alternates between the on-state and the off-state over the period of time.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein a number of the logical zeros and ones in the power vector remains fixed while the power vector rotates over the period of time.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the switch activation ratio level is controllably set individually for the at least one power gated component based on an amount of current drawn such that during time intervals with higher current draw the switch activation ratio level is increased, and during time intervals with lower current draw the switch activation ratio level is decreased.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the programmable rotation interval is controllably set individually for the at least one power gated component depending on an amount of current passing through one or more of the power switch transistors in the on-state such that during time intervals with higher current the programmable rotation interval is decreased, and during time intervals with lower current the programmable rotation interval is increased.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the switch activation ratio level is set based on one or more of:

a power proxy, an activity counter, a current measurement, a power measurement, and a thermal measurement.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the programmable rotation interval is set based on one or more of:

a power proxy, an activity counter, a current measurement, a power measurement, and a thermal measurement.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one power gated component is at least one core of a multi-core processing chip.

20. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one power gated component is at least one processing element of an active memory device, the active memory device comprising a plurality of memory stacks associated with the at least one processing element.