Sonics, Inc., supplier of on-chip network (NoC) and power management technologies and services, and Moortec, specialists in embedded in-chip sensing, announced their partnership that integrates the companies’ products to provide advanced power management techniques to SoC (system-on-chip) and MCU designers. The partnership couples Sonics’ ICE-P3 with Moortec’s compelling Temperature Sensors to enable temperature-compensated, dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) in chip designs intended for power-sensitive devices such as mobile/handheld and the Internet of Things (IoT). The partnership solution is available immediately.
Employing DVFS enables chip designers to dramatically reduce energy consumption by lowering frequency to match dynamic throughput conditions and simultaneously lowering the voltage to the minimum that safely supports that frequency. However, the minimum voltage depends upon both semiconductor process skew and on-chip temperature, which frequently causes energy-wasting overdesign to cover worst-case process and temperature conditions. While it is increasingly common to re-optimize voltage values for process skew during manufacturing test, compensating for temperature requires on-chip thermal monitoring. Thermal sensors also provide invaluable alarm conditions that warn of thermal runaway conditions.
The Moortec Embedded Temperature Sensor IP product line offers high testability and high accuracy and allows for device performance optimization and device characterization. ICE-P3 is the IP industry’s first product to automate DVFS implementation and is the newest member of the ICE-Grain Family of Energy Processing Units (EPUs) that identifies, sequences, and controls power state transitions in hardware up to 500X faster than conventional software-based approaches. In the combined solution, the EPU modulates the requested voltage to deliver a desired frequency based upon directly-connected temperature sensor data. Additionally, thermal alarms may be connected to the EPU to force power state changes that reduce heat generation, such as slowing down or shutting off IP cores or subsystems.
More information:
Sonics, 2570 N. First Street, Suite 100, San Jose, CA 95131; 408 457 2800; info@sonicsinc.com
Moortec Semiconductor Ltd, 7 Research Way, Plymouth Science Park, Derriford, Plymouth, PL6 8BT, UK; +44 1752 875130.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.