Power efficiency in microprocessors using reduction of hamming distance between data value
AssigneeAT&T Corp.
InventorsAlan Mycroft, Paul Webster, Phil Endecott
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of reducing the power consumption of microprocessor system is provided, wherein: said microprocessor system comprises a microprocessor (2) and a memory (4) connected by a bus (6); said memory (4) contains a plurality of data values, each represented by a number of bits, for transmission to said microprocessor (2) via the bus (6); and at least some of said data values contain unused bits; and wherein said method includes assigning values to said unused bits in such a way as to reduce the Hamming distance between successive data values by a greater extent than setting all of said unused bits to an arbitrary predetermined value.
Claims20
A method of reducing the power consumption of a microprocessor system which comprises a microprocessor and a memory connected by at least one bus, said memory containing a plurality of data values, each represented by a number of bits, for transmission to said microprocessor via said at least one bus, and at least some of said data values containing unused bits,
- said method including assigning values to said unused bits in such a way as to reduce the Hamming distance between successive data values by a greater extent than setting all of said unused bits to an arbitrary predetermined value;
- said method further including:
- setting unused bits in an initial data value to a predetermined bit value;
- and
- considering each remaining data value in sequence, assigning a bit value to each unused bit, the assigned bit value being equal to a bit value of a corresponding bit in a previously considered data value.
A method of reducing the power consumption of a microprocessor system which comprises a microprocessor and a memory connected by at least one bus, said memory containing a plurality of data values, each represented by a number of bits, for transmission to said microprocessor via said at least one bus, and at least some of said data values containing unused bits,
- said method including assigning values to said unused bits in such a way as to reduce the Hamming distance between successive data values by a greater extent than setting all of said unused bits to an arbitrary predetermined value,
- said microprocessor system employing a pipelining architectural feature, wherein said data values represent instructions to said microprocessor, and wherein said method further comprises the step of determining whether each instruction is a point of divergence, the point of divergence being considered to be the instructions an appropriate distance after branch instructions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.