Closed Loop Adaptive Voltage Scaling for ASIC

Jim Doyle
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Chief Technologist, Advanced Technology Group
Portable Power Systems
National Semiconductor Inc., Longmont Colorado

Power control and reduction are of increasing concern in advanced process technologies for power sensitive applications such as wireless handsets and PDAs.  This presentation will discuss an Adaptive Voltage Scaling technique and specifically the controller which is integrated on the ASIC to accurately track the chip performance.  Based on this controller, the supply voltage is driven to guarantee performance at optimal power.  The controller details and implementation will be presented along with an example evaluation device to validate the system.