Power supply gating arrangement for processing cores
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorParin Patel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A power gate is coupled to a power supply circuit to selectively provide power to a processing core. A switch has a local state and a remote state to alternately route (i) a local sense point on a supply side of the power gate and (ii) and a remote sense point on a load side of the power gate, to a load voltage feedback input of the power supply circuit. Timing logic and driver circuitry control the power gate and the switch in response to a processing core enable signal. Other embodiments are also described.
Claims21
An electronic system comprising:
- a processing core;
- a power supply circuit having a load voltage feedback input;
- a power gate coupled to the power supply circuit to selectively provide power to the processing core;
- a switch having a local state and a remote state to alternately route (i) a local sense point on a supply side of the power gate and (ii) a remote sense point on a load side of the power gate, to the feedback input of the power supply circuit;
- and
- timing logic and driver circuitry coupled to control the power gate and the switch.
An electronic circuit comprising:
- a power gate to be coupled to a power supply circuit to selectively provide power to a microprocessor core;
- a switch having a local state and a remote state to alternately route (i) a local sense point on a supply side of the power gate and (ii) a remote sense point on a load side of the power gate, to a feedback input of the power supply circuit;
- and
- timing logic and driver circuitry coupled to control the power gate and the switch.
A method for operating an electronic system, comprising:
- receiving a processing core enable signal;
- and
- in response to the received processing core enable signal being asserted, signaling a power gate to open to thereby deliver power from a power supply circuit to a processing core and then switching a feedback input of the power supply circuit from a local sense point to a remote sense point.
A method for operating an electronic system, comprising:
- receiving a processing core enable signal;
- and
- in response to the received processing core enable signal being de-asserted, switching a feedback input of a power supply circuit, that is delivering power from a power supply circuit to a processing core, from a remote sense point to a local sense point and then signaling a power gate to close to thereby stop delivering power to the processing core.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.