FPGA Power Control via Hardware Timing

The patent replaces software-based power management with a hardware-based power management system. The hardware system uses dedicated power management circuits and control logic to generate power-on signals with precise timing, eliminating the imprecision of software timing control. This substitution provides sub-microsecond resolution in controlling the order and delay of power delivery to multiple FPGAs, thereby improving synchronization precision while maintaining ease of implementation through automated hardware control.

The patent implements a segmented power management architecture where the system is divided into multiple power management modules, each capable of independently controlling power delivery to groups of FPGAs. This modular segmentation allows the system to scale from a small number to thousands of FPGAs by simply adding more segments or modules, while each segment maintains the same simple hardware-based control mechanism, thus preserving implementation simplicity while achieving high scalability.

The patent introduces a dedicated hardware power management module as an intermediary between the system controller and the multiple FPGAs. This intermediary module handles all the complex timing and sequencing of power delivery, generating precisely timed power-on signals to each FPGA in the correct order with accurate delays. By concentrating the complexity in this single intermediary hardware module, the overall system achieves fast emulation speeds while the complexity is localized and managed within the power management subsystem rather than distributed throughout the entire system.