Load balanced on-chip power delivery for average current demand

Abstract

A dynamic power management system for homogeneous chip multi-processors (CMP) is proposed. Each core of the CMP includes on chip DC-DC switching buck converters that are interconnected through a switch network. The peak current rating of the buck converter is selected to meet only the average current demand of the load circuit. A real-time load balancing algorithm is developed which reconfigures the power delivery network by combining the output of multiple buck converters when the workload demand exceeds the peak current rating. Simulation results for the proposed power delivery method indicate up to a 44% reduction in the energy consumption of the CMP system. In addition, the on-chip footprint of the power delivery network, including the on-chip voltage regulators and the switching network, is reduced by at least 23%.