Global hardware supervised power transition management circuits, processes and systems

• US 8,775,839 B2
• Filed: 01/15/2009
• Issued: 07/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Cousson, Benoit, Titiano, Patrick
• Primary Examiner(s): Myers, Paul R
• Application Number:
  US12/354,351
• Publication Number:
  US 20090204831A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,000 Days
• Field of Search: 710/107, 713/322
• US Class Current: 713/322
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3203 Power management, i.e. event-based initiation of a power-saving mode
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/324 by lowering clock frequency
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3253 Power saving in bus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3275 Power saving in memory, e.g. RAM, cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3296 by lowering the supply or operating voltage
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2360/128 Frame memory using a Synchronous Dynamic RAM [SDRAM]
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2370/16 Use of wireless transmission of display information
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/006 Details of the interface to the display terminal specific for a display terminal using a CRT G09G1/167; using a flat panel G09G3/2096; circuits for interfacing with colour displays G09G5/04
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

An electronic circuit including a bus (3521), a peripheral (3510.i/3552.1) coupled to the bus (3521), the peripheral having a storing circuit (3620.i, 3625.i) for a succession-presetting and a parameter setting currently-effective for peripheral operation on the bus (3521); and a power management circuit (3570) operable in response to a power management transition request (GO_bit) to send a first signal (START_bit_i) to the peripheral, and to initiate a bus frequency transition, and to send a second signal (PER_ENABLE_i) to the peripheral after the bus frequency transition; and the peripheral is responsive to the first signal (START_bit_i) to stall peripheral operation on the bus (3521), the peripheral operable to automatically promote the succession pre-setting to currently-effective status for the peripheral after peripheral operations on the bus (3521) are stalled and responsive to the second signal (PER_ENABLE_i) to re-enable peripheral operation on the bus (3521). Other circuits, devices, systems, apparatus, and processes are disclosed.

Claims

1. An electronic circuit comprising

a bus;

a peripheral coupled to said bus, the peripheral having a storing circuit for a succession-presetting and a parameter setting currently-effective for peripheral operation on said bus; and

a power management circuit operable in response to a power management transition request to send a first signal to said peripheral, and to initiate a bus frequency transition, and to send a second signal to the peripheral after the bus frequency transition, and

said peripheral is responsive to the first signal to stall peripheral operation on said bus, said peripheral operable to automatically promote the succession pre-setting to currently-effective status for the peripheral after peripheral operations on said bus are stalled and responsive to the second signal to re-enable peripheral operation on said bus.

2. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 further comprising a processor operable to pre-program the succession pre-setting in the peripheral.

3. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 further comprising a processor operable to issue the power management transition request to the power management circuit.

4. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 wherein said peripheral is responsive with a handshake signal to the power management circuit when the peripheral operation on said bus is stalled, and said power management circuit is responsive to the handshake signal to initiate the bus frequency transition.

7. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 wherein the combination of power management circuit and peripheral is operable to contain a time interval between the first and second signals to five (5) microseconds or less and with peripheral operations with said buffer uninterrupted by the stall of peripheral operations on said bus.

8. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 further comprising a memory controller peripheral having a storing circuit for a second succession-presetting and a second parameter setting currently-effective for memory controller operation on said bus, said memory controller responsive to the first signal to stall memory controller operation on said bus and to automatically promote the second succession pre-setting to currently-effective status for the memory controller and responsive to the second signal to re-enable memory controller operation on said bus.

9. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 further comprising a memory controller coupled to said bus and to a memory and said memory controller operable to send a memory controller reporting signal to said power management circuit representing memory usage, with said power management transition request a function of the memory controller reporting signal.

10. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 1 further comprising a direct memory access (DMA) controller coupled to said bus and said DMA controller operable to send a DMA reporting signal to said power management circuit representing DMA load, with said power management transition request a function of the DMA reporting signal.

5. The electronic circuit claimed in 1 wherein said storing circuit includes a buffer, and said peripheral is operable to continue peripheral operations with said buffer regardless of whether peripheral operation on said bus is stalled.

6. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 5 wherein said peripheral is responsive with a handshake signal to the first signal from said power management circuit, and said buffer has a buffer signal representing a state of readiness, and said handshake signal depends on the buffer signal.

11. A power management article comprising:

an input for a power management transition request;

an output for a transition initiation signal;

an input for a transition initiation acknowledgment;

an output for a frequency control;

an input for a frequency stabilization signal;

an output for a transition completion signal; and

a state machine responsive to the input for the power management transition request to activate the output for a transition initiation signal and then responsive to the input for the transition initiation acknowledgment to activate the output for the frequency control and then responsive to the input for the frequency stabilization signal to activate the output for the transition completion signal.

12. The power management article claimed in claim 11 further comprising a second input for a second transition initiation acknowledgment, and said state machine responsive to said first-named and second transition initiation acknowledgments to activate the output for frequency control.

13. The power management article claimed in claim 11 further comprising a combining circuit having a plurality of transition initiation acknowledgment inputs, said combining circuit jointly responsive to the transition initiation acknowledgment inputs to supply said input for a transition initiation acknowledgment to said state machine.

14. An electronic peripheral comprising:

a functional circuit for establishing peripheral functionality;

a bus interface circuit coupled to said storage circuit;

a storage circuitry coupled to said functional circuit and to said bus interface circuit, said storage circuit having a data buffer and a space for successively applicable power management related control parameter values; and

a peripheral controller responsive to a transition initiation signal to disable at least part of the bus interface circuit, and to transfer current effectiveness between at least two of the successively applicable power management related control parameter values, and responsive to a re-enabling signal to re-enable the disabled part of the bus interface circuit.

15. The electronic peripheral claimed in claim 14 wherein said peripheral controller is further responsive to the transition initiation signal to activate a handshake acknowledgment output.

16. The electronic peripheral claimed in claim 14 wherein said bus interface circuit has a part operable for burst traffic and said peripheral controller is further responsive to the transition initiation signal to disable the part operable for burst traffic when that part has completed transfer of pending burst traffic.

17. The electronic peripheral claimed in claim 14 wherein the bus interface is coupled to said storage for control of bus interface operation based on a currently-effective control parameter value.

18. The electronic peripheral claimed in claim 14 wherein said peripheral controller is further responsive to a control code input to determine which of the power management related control parameter values becomes currently-effective.

19. An electronic image processing system comprising:

processing circuitry operable for image processing;

a bus coupled to said processing circuitry;

an image peripheral coupled to said bus, the image peripheral having a storing circuit for a succession-presetting and a parameter setting currently-effective for image peripheral operation on said bus, said processor operable to pre-program the succession presetting in the image peripheral and to generate a power management transition request; and

a power management circuit operable in response to the power management transition request to send a first signal to said image peripheral, and to initiate a bus frequency transition, and to send a second signal to the image peripheral after the bus frequency transition, and

said image peripheral is responsive to the first signal to stall image peripheral operation on said bus, said image peripheral operable to automatically promote the succession pre-setting to currently-effective status for the image peripheral after image peripheral operations on said bus are stalled and responsive to the second signal to re-enable image peripheral operation on said bus.

20. The electronic image processing system claimed in claim 19 further comprising a wireless modem coupled to said processing circuitry, and a display coupled to said image peripheral.

21. The electronic image processing system claimed in claim 19 further comprising a camera sensor coupled to said image peripheral.

22. A manufacturing process comprising

preparing design code representing a peripheral having a bus interface and a register field for a current setting related to power management and a register field for a shadow setting related to power management and a power management circuit coupled to the peripheral to stall the bus interface and promote a shadow setting to the current setting, and re-enable the bus interface;

and

making at least one integrated circuit by wafer fabrication responsive to said design code.