Design issues for dynamic voltage scaling

Abstract

Processors in portable electronic devices generally have a computational load which has time-varying performance requirements. Dynamic Voltage Scaling is a method to vary the processor's supply voltage so that it consumes the minimal amount of energy by operating at the minimum performance level required by the active software processes. A dynamically varying supply voltage has implications on the processor circuit design and design flow, but with some minimal constraints it is straightforward to design a processor with this capability.