Integrated circuits having post-silicon adjustment control
OwnerYoshiyuki Andoinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An integrated circuit system has a reference data table for holding information that is used to control at least one circuit block in the system and also has a power supply circuit, a body bias control circuit, a clock delivery circuit, a temperature monitor circuit, and/or a configuration control circuit. The performance of the system is improved by obtaining system performance data by testing the system at different supply voltages, different body-bias voltages, different clock speeds, and/or different temperatures. Values based on the data are entered into the reference data table. The power supply circuit, the body bias control circuit, the clock delivery circuit, and/or the temperature monitor circuit data is adjusted using the entered values.
Claims30
In an integrated circuit system having access to a reference data table for holding information used to control at least one circuit block in said system and at least one of a power supply circuit, a body bias control circuit, a clock delivery circuit, a temperature monitor circuit, and a configuration control circuit, a method of improving the performance of said system comprising
- (a) obtaining system performance data by testing said system at different supply voltages, different body-bias voltages, different clock speeds, different temperatures, different data bus widths, different circuit block configurations, or combinations thereof;
- and
- (b) entering values based on said data into said reference data table,where at least one of said power supply circuit, said body bias control circuit, said clock delivery circuit, said temperature monitor circuit, and said configuration control circuit is controlled using said values.
In an integrated circuit system having a programmable reference data table for holding information used to control at least one of operation voltage, operating clock speed, and temperature range in a power supply circuit, a body bias control circuit, a clock delivery circuit, a temperature monitor circuit, and a configuration control circuit, a method of improving the performance of said system comprising
- (A) obtaining system performance data by testing said system at different supply voltages, different body-bias voltages, different clock speeds, different temperatures, different data bus widths, different circuit block configurations, or combinations thereof;
- and
- (B) entering values based on said data into said reference data table, where at least one of said operation voltage, operating body-bias voltage, operating clock speed, and temperature range in said power supply circuit, body bias control circuit, clock circuit, clock delivery circuit, temperature monitor circuit, and configuration control circuit is controlled using said values.
In an integrated circuit system having access to a reference data table, at least two same function circuit blocks, and a control circuit to control which of said circuit blocks executes a task, based on values in said reference data table, a method of improving the performance of said system comprising
- (A) obtaining system performance data by testing said system at different supply voltages, different body-bias voltages, different clock speeds, different temperatures, different data bus widths, different circuit block configurations, or combinations thereof;
- and
- (B) entering values based on said data into said reference data table, whereby said control circuit selects or configures one of said blocks based on values in said reference data table.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.