Method for power reduction and a device having power reduction capabilities

Abstract

A device that includes: (i) an evaluated circuit; (ii) a leakage current dependent oscillator configured to generate an oscillating signal that has an oscillating frequency that represents a leakage current of the evaluated circuit; (iii) a switching current dependent oscillator configured to generate an oscillating signal that has an oscillating frequency that represents a switching induced current of the evaluated circuit; (iv) a power reduction module that is configured to: (a) compare between an oscillation frequency of the leakage current dependent oscillator and an oscillation frequency of the switching current dependent oscillator, to provide a current comparison result; (b) select a power reduction technique out of a dynamic voltage and frequency scaling technique and a power gating technique in view of the current comparison result; and (c) apply the selected power reduction technique.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.