Patent ID: 6477654
Filing Date: 2002-11-05
Classification: G06F,Y02D

Abstract:
A method of operating a programmable integrated circuit having plural functional units each operable at plural operable power levels, the integrated circuit including a functional unit power control unit including a Vt command decoder for receiving an instruction stream from an instruction prefetch queue and responsive to pre-inserted power control instructions generated by a compiler or a post-processing program for altering the power status of selected one or more of said functional units, said method comprising:storing plural instructions, said instructions including the pre-inserted power control instructions, at least one of the stored power control instructions including data identifying a specific one of the functional units, extracting said stored instructions in a sequence, examining each extracted instruction to determine if it is a power control instruction, and changing the power status of at least the specific one of the functional units in response to the power control instruction to one of the plural operable power levels.