Apparatus and method for reducing current consumption in a portable terminal
AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
InventorsSoo-Hyung Kim, Dae-Chul Kang, Jae-Ho Hwang, Hai-Min Lee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus and method for reducing current consumption in a portable terminal are provided, in which upon generation of a task, a controller transitions to a Virtual Maximum Clock (VMC) level and changes a clock level from the VMC level according to a load state of the controller, to process the task. Moreover, the controller changes the clock level by at least one of transition from the VMC level to an RMC level, a stepwise increase from the VMC level, a stepwise decrease from the VMC level, and a hold at the VMC level, according to the load state of the controller.
Claims10
An apparatus comprising:
- a controller configured to:
- identify a task at a minimum clock rate associated with the controller;
- increase, using an on-demand scheme, a clock rate from the minimum clock rate having a non-zero level to a specified clock rate that is higher than the minimum clock rate and less than a maximum clock rate, and control processing of at least part of the identified task at the specified clock rate if a load state associated with the controller is within a specified value;
- determine another load state associated with the controller based at least in part on the task at the specified clock rate;
- and
- change the clock rate from the specified clock rate to another clock rate associated with the controller higher than the specified clock rate based at least in part on the another load state associated with the controller.
A method for reducing current consumption in a portable terminal, the method comprising:
- identifying a task at a minimum clock rate associated with a controller;
- increasing, using an on-demand scheme, a clock rate from the minimum clock rate having a non-zero level to a specified clock rate that is higher than the minimum clock rate and less than a maximum clock rate, and controlling processing of at least part of the identified task at the specified clock rate if a load state associated with the controller is within a specified value;
- determining another load state associated with a controller based at least in part on the task at the specified clock rate;
- and
- changing the clock rate from the specified clock rate to another clock rate associated with the controller higher than the specified clock rate based at least in part on the another load state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.