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US 8,264,210 B2Granted
Interface to regulate voltage for ASIC power management
AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorsMehran Ataee, Udupi Harisharan, Jun Qian, Thomas A. Hamilton, Senthil Somasundaram
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method and apparatus to regulate voltage used to power an ASIC comprising an ASIC having a signal source and a modulator. The modulator establishes a characteristic of a signal created by the signal source to indicate a voltage level to be used to power the ASIC. The signal is communicated to a voltage regulator to apply an optimal voltage to the ASIC.
Claims23
An apparatus comprising:
- an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) having a signal source and a modulator, wherein the modulator is configured to impose a modulation on a signal produced by the signal source in order to establish a characteristic of the signal that indicates a voltage level to be used to power the ASIC;
- a voltage regulator including a signal processor and a voltage controller;
- and
- a power bus coupling the voltage regulator to the ASIC;
- wherein the voltage regulator is coupled to receive the signal from the ASIC, the signal processor is configured to analyze the signal from the ASIC for the characteristic to determine the voltage level for operation of the ASIC, and based on the characteristic, the voltage controller is configured to adjust the voltage level for power supplied over a power bus coupling the voltage regulator to the ASIC.
2 more elements
A method comprising:
- coupling a power bus between an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) and a voltage regulator;
- applying power on the power bus at a first voltage level to the ASIC from the voltage regulator;
- sending a repeating signal on a conductor from the ASIC to the voltage regulator, wherein the repeating signal is modulated to establish a characteristic that identifies a second voltage level to be used for powering the ASIC;
- and
- at the voltage regulator, analyzing the repeating signal to determine the characteristic that identifies the second voltage level and adjusting the power supplied on the power bus to the ASIC to the second voltage level based on the characteristic determined from the signal.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.