Powerwise Adaptive Voltage Scaling Technology by National Semiconductor (now a part of Texas Instruments)

Product Description

Introducing PowerWise Adaptive Voltage Scaling (AVS) and Intelligent Energy Manager (IEM): Advanced energy conservation technology.

Realizing the need for collaboration, National Semiconductor (a leader in power management) and ARM (the world leader in RISC microprocessor cores) have come together to deploy a holistic, system-level solution that intelligently manages performance and power consumption within embedded systems. This solution combines complementary energy conservation technologies —National’s PowerWise AVS and ARM’s IEM — to provide the best energy conservation solution on the market.

National’s PowerWise AVS technology is a system-level approach for reducing the power consumption of a digital VLSI chip. It creates closed-loop systems where the power-consumption and power-delivery systems operate in close cooperation, minimizing the demands on the power source while providing peak energy efficiency. The PowerWise AVS technology embeds a synthesizable AMBA™ technology-compliant core called Adaptive Power Controller (APC), which works together with the ARM CPU. The APC determines the power requirements and communicates this information to the external power supply, using a high-speed, low-power PowerWise Interface.

Meanwhile, ARM's Intelligent Energy Manager technology implements advanced algorithms to optimally balance processor workload and energy consumption, while maximizing system responsiveness to meet end-user performance expectations. The technology works with the device operating system and applications to dynamically adjust the required CPU performance level through a standard programmer's model. National's APC core then adaptively sets the minimum required power supply voltage delivered by the external AVS compliant power management IC.

The Intelligent Energy Manager technology consists of sophisticated software algorithms working together with an embedded hardware manager. The technology interacts with the operating system and applications to predict processor loads, and determine the performance required to complete individual tasks within their deadlines.

National's APC IP is available for licensing in the form of HDL synthesizable code in order to support any silicon vendor or foundry process. This will allow any company desiring to adopt PowerWise AVS energy conservation technology to license the APC from National and incorporate the APC in their design.

Minimizing Size, Maximizing Savings: the National/ARM competitive edge:

Using the combination of National’s PowerWise AVS technology and ARM’s Intelligent Energy Manager technology, makers of personal portable electronics will be able to dramatically increase the features and functionality of their handsets or increase battery life while maintaining the same user profile (e.g., size, weight and battery life).

Powerwise Adaptive Voltage Scaling Technology

Market Segment(s)

• Embedded
• Enterprise
• Home
• Mobile

Target Platform(s)

• Linux
• Symbian
• Windows Embedded CE
• Windows Mobile

ARM Processor(s)

• ARM7EJ-S
• ARM7TDMI
• ARM7TDMI-S
• ARM920T
• ARM922T
• ARM926EJ-S
• ARM946E-S
• ARM966E-S
• ARM968E-S
• ARM1020E
• ARM1022E
• ARM1026EJ-S
• ARM1136J-S
• ARM1136JF-S
• ARM1156T2(F)-S
• ARM1176JZ(F)-S
• ARM11 MPCore
• Cortex-A53
• Cortex-A57
• Cortex-A8
• ARMv8

System IP

• Interconnect Fabric