Reduced power consumption signal processing methods and apparatus

Abstract

This invention is generally concerned with reduced power consumption signal processing methods and apparatus, and in particular with techniques for jointly controlling power supply voltage and clock frequency in a receiver to reduce power consumption. A method of reducing the power consumption of a data receiver is described. The receiver is configured to process a received signal using repeated implementations of substantially the same first data processing element, a rate of said repetitions being determined by a clock frequency of said first data processing element. The method comprises determining a number of repetitions of said repeated implementations of said first data processing element; processing said receiving signal according to said determined number of repetitions; adjusting said number of repetitions in response to a power saving control signal; and jointly reducing said clock frequency and a power supply voltage to said first data processing element in response to said control signal to reduce said receiver power consumption.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention generally relates to a signal processing method and apparatus for reducing power consumption, and more particularly, to a technique for jointly controlling a power supply voltage and a clock frequency in a receiver to reduce power consumption. Background technique [0002] An important factor in the design of portable communication devices, such as mobile phones, and portable computing devices including wireless communication, such as PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), is the power consumption of communication circuits. This has a direct impact on battery life and thus on device size and weight. It is important to reduce power consumption as much as possible consistent with acceptable communication performance, and the present invention meets that need. [0003] Typically, attempts to reduce power consumption have focused on developing silicon technology to enable it to operate at lower supply voltages, and on careful circuit de...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

This is straightforward to implement but not suitable for real-time processing, since this algorithm does not take into account the processing constraints implicit in real-time operation

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