System-on-Chip with DVFM Protection Circuit

A system, comprising:

• multiple hardware circuits, which are coupled to respective power domains having respective sets of domain-specific power settings;
• and
• protection circuitry, configured to:
• monitor requests in which one or more of the hardware circuits request transitions between the domain-specific power settings;
• determine, from among multiple system-level combinations of the domain-specific power settings, a subset of system-level combinations that could potentially be traversed in performing the requested transitions;
• and
• grant the requested transitions in response to verifying that all the system-level combinations in the subset are specified as valid.

A method, comprising:

• operating multiple hardware circuits, which are coupled to respective power domains having respective sets of domain-specific power settings;
• monitoring requests in which one or more of the hardware circuits request transitions between the domain-specific power settings;
• determining, from among multiple system-level combinations of the domain-specific power settings, a subset of system-level combinations that could potentially be traversed in performing the requested transitions;
• and
• granting the requested transitions in response to verifying that all the system-level combinations in the subset are specified as valid.

A System-on-Chip (SoC), comprising:

• multiple hardware circuits, which are coupled to respective power domains having respective sets of domain-specific power settings;
• and
• protection circuitry, configured to:
• monitor requests in which one or more of the hardware circuits request transitions between the domain-specific power settings;
• determine, from among multiple system-level combinations of the domain-specific power settings, a subset of system-level combinations that could potentially be traversed in performing the requested transitions;
• and
• grant the requested transitions in response to verifying that all the system-level combinations in the subset are specified as valid.