Patent Abstract:
Measurement circuit components are included in an integrated circuit fabricated on a semiconductor substrate. A method is provided for controlling the speed of a cooling fan provided to cool an integrated circuit in which includes the steps of receiving a voltage from a thermal diode, addressing a table of digital temperatures by incrementing the address of the table entries every clock cycle of a circuit clock, converting the addressed data to a second voltage representing temperature, comparing the first voltage to the second voltage, providing a resulting temperature when both the first and second voltages are equal, and adjusting the fan speed accordingly.

Full Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]    This application is related to the following co-pending U.S. Patent Applications filed on the same day as the present application and having the same assignee: “On-Chip Adaptive Voltage Compensation,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0231 US1); “Using Temperature Data for Instruction Thread Direction,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0263 US1); “Using Performance Data for Instruction Thread Direction,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0262 US1); “Using IR Drop Data for Instruction Thread Direction,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0261 US1); “Integrated Circuit Failure Prediction,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0260 US1); “Instruction Dependent Dynamic Voltage Compensation,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0259 US1); “Temperature Dependent Voltage Source Compensation,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0258 US1); and “Digital Adaptive Voltage Supply,” (Docket No. RPS9 2006 0256 US1); each assigned to the IBM Corporation and herein incorporated by reference. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    1. Technical Field 
         [0003]    The present invention relates in general to a system and method for regulating cooling of integrated circuits. In particular, the present invention relates to a system and method for regulating fan speed based on measured temperatures of integrated circuit. 
         [0004]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0005]    Integrated circuits require heat dissipation or cooling. Some integrated systems provide cooling by merely allowing the integrated circuit generated heat to dissipate in the surrounding atmosphere or by aid of heat sinks. Other cases require external devices to provide cooling assistance. Commonly, integrated circuits are mounted on printed circuit boards that are contained within a chassis having a fan mounted to providing airflow through the chassis, in order to cool the integrated circuits. 
         [0006]    Present practice is to provide a single speed fan in a chassis. However, as integrated circuits advance in technology and clock frequency increases, cooling becomes more of a concern. Therefore, in some systems, variable speed fans have been provided. A typical way to implement the cooling with a variable speed fan is to connect a veritable speed fan to a thermostat, which measures the air temperature inside of a chassis. Based on the ambient air temperature, the fan speed can be adjusted to provide cooling. 
         [0007]    However, the ambient air temperature is not the best measure of the heat of a specific integrated circuit sense. A computer system contains several integrated circuits. Each integrated circuit has its own heat that needs to be dissipated. Certain integrated circuits, such as central processing units or CPUs, require a greater amount of cooling than other integrated circuits in the system. Again, it is not uncommon to provide these CPU integrated circuits with heat sinks or even a fan mounted on the integrated circuit. Thermal diodes have been used in chips to measure junction temperature of provide signals for fan speed control. Some integrated circuits provide a digital output of the temperature signal for controlling fans. However, a need exists to provide a more flexible control of cooling based upon temperature data obtained on the integrated circuit devices. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0008]    In accordance with the present invention, a method for controlling the speed of a cooling fan provided to cool an integrated circuit in which includes the steps of receiving a voltage from a thermal diode, addressing a table of digital temperatures by incrementing the address of the table entries every clock cycle of a circuit clock, converting the addressed data to a second voltage representing temperature, comparing the first voltage, but the second voltage, providing a resulting temperature when both the first and second voltages are equal, and adjusting the fan speed accordingly. 
         [0009]    In one embodiment of the present invention, a method for controlling fan speed, including the steps of measuring temperature using several thermal diodes located upon the surface of a single integrated circuit, and determining if the measured temperatures are with and a predetermined temperature range, where the average of the temperatures is used to control the fan speed. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0010]    The present invention may be better understood, and its numerous objects, features, and advantages made apparent to those skilled in the art by referencing the accompanying drawings. 
           [0011]      FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of a simple embodiment of the temperature measurement circuit; 
           [0012]      FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of the temperature measurement circuit; 
           [0013]      FIG. 3  is a schematic diagram of the two ring oscillator circuit that provides input for the frequency response measurement and provides the IR drop measurement; 
           [0014]      FIG. 4  is a schematic diagram of the preferred embodiment of the adaptive voltage compensation circuit; 
           [0015]      FIG. 5  is a flow chart representing the operation of the adaptive voltage compensation circuit; 
           [0016]      FIG. 6  is a block diagram of an adaptive voltage supply system connected to a fan speed controller and a fan; 
           [0017]      FIG. 7  is a diagram illustrating a single integrated circuit containing several cores that each included adapter power supply; and 
           [0018]      FIG. 8  as a flow chart detailing the procedure executed by the fan speed controller. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0019]    The following is intended to provide a detailed description of an example of the invention and should not be taken to be limiting of the invention itself. Rather, any number of variations may fall within the scope of the invention, which is defined in the claims following the description. 
         [0020]    The present invention provides a cooling mechanism including a fan speed controller that operates off of data obtained from an adaptive voltage system. The adaptive voltage system is contained upon the integrated circuit surface itself. In one embodiment of the invention, individual and adaptive voltage systems are contained within each core of a Baltic or integrated circuit. A common application would provide an integrated circuit having multiple CPUs, where each CPU is a core. Each of the adaptive voltage systems contained within each core would provide an input to a fan speed controller that would be connected to a fan to provide cooling for the computer system or for the individual integrated circuit itself. 
         [0021]    What follows is a discussion of the adaptive voltage supply, followed by an explanation of how data obtained from the adaptive voltage supply is used to regulate cooling. In the preferred embodiment of the adaptive voltage supply, three physical condition measurements are made. The first is temperature, which is measured by a thermal diode on the surface of the integrated circuit. The second is the IR (voltage) drop measured by two ring oscillator circuits and the third is the frequency performance of the integrated circuit measured by a single loop oscillator compared to stored predetermined performance values. 
         [0022]    The complete control signal provided to the voltage regulation circuit is: 
         [0000]      Total Vdd scaling=Frequency response scaling+Temperature related Vdd scaling+IR drop related scaling 
         [0023]    All of the measurement circuits are contained on the surface of this integrated circuit device in the preferred embodiment. These measurements are then used to scale an input control signal to a voltage regulation circuit also contained on the surface of the integrated circuit device or alternatively on another integrated circuit. The output of this voltage regulation device provides the integrated circuit operating voltage (chip Vdd). Thus the voltage supplied to the integrated circuit can be adjusted to either save power or increase performance dynamically during the operation of the chip by under program control. Further the integrated circuit voltage and, therefore, performance can be changed in anticipation of operating environment changes such as a sleep state or the execution of instructions requiring higher circuit performance. 
         [0024]    This is a dynamic method of varying voltage that takes into account the specifics of the semiconductor manufacturing process, temperature and IR drop effects simultaneously. This method uses available on-chip data to compute adjustment in voltage necessary to either meet target performance or decrease power consumption. The two goals are met using the same circuit. Another advantage of using this method is the flexibility it offers to the users in terms of programmability. On chip voltage can be artificially varied by writing into special registers which provide values used by the power management circuitry to provide the supply voltage Vdd. This feature can be helpful when expecting instructions that require high circuit performance, essentially providing an “on-Demand” performance capability. In other words, to provide on request, additional circuit supply voltage to increase circuit performance. 
         [0025]    This method is not limited to a specific technology or type of circuit. It can be applied to a broad type of integrated circuits, especially those that need to deliver higher performance at lower power consumption. 
         [0026]    This method also offers reduction in test time for identifying yield and voltage per module. It is a dynamic solution unlike previous static solutions (fuses, etc) that takes into account effects of IR drop. 
         [0027]      FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of one embodiment of the thermal measurement circuit  125  shown connected to the voltage regulation circuit which provides the integrated circuit voltage source (Chip Vdd). This measurement circuit includes a current source  100  connected to the voltage source. This current source  100  is also connected by a line  103  to a thermal diode  102  also connected to ground. The voltage across the thermal diode  102  indicates the measured temperature of this integrated circuit. This thermal voltage signal is provided over line  103  to an analog comparator  106 . The output of the comparator  106  is connected to an address counter  110  providing an address to a digital to analog (D to A) converter  114 . The operating range for a thermal diode is commonly zero to 125° C. The address counter  110  includes a look up table with 128 entries. These entries correspond to 0 to 127 degrees C. Initially, the address counter  110  starts at zero degrees and increments upward each clock cycle. Each address is provided to the D to A converter  114  over line  112 . In operation, the analog comparator  106  compares the output of the D to A converter  114  with the measured thermal voltage provided by the thermal diode  102 . When the address counter  110  provides an output representing the same temperature as the thermal diode  102 , the output voltage from the D to A converter  110  will be the same voltage as that provided by the thermal diode  102 . The output of the analog comparator  106  will then be zero. The address counter  110  will then stop incrementing and provide a signal over line  116  to a delay lookup table (LUT) circuit  118 . This value on line  116  is a digital signal representing the temperature measured by the thermal diode  102 . This thermal voltage value is used to address a corresponding delay value in the delay lookup table circuit  118 . The delay lookup table in circuit  118  is a table of pulse width values computed by a simulation of the performance of the integrated circuit. Each value represents the expected delay value computed for the temperature range of 0 to 127 degrees C. for expected integrated circuit performance. 
         [0028]    To measure the process on the substrate, a ring oscillator connected to a temperature compensated voltage source (ex: a bandgap reference) is used. In this case, for a given temperature, the pulse width produced by the ring oscillator is a function of the process on the substrate since temperature and voltage are constant. By using a bandgap reference, the voltage applied to a ring oscillator can be kept constant. But the temperature of the substrate depends upon internal and external operating conditions and it cannot be held constant. To eliminate the effects of varying temperature, another scheme is used in this invention. 
         [0029]    First, a target predicted circuit performance number (pcpn) is chosen. This number represents the expected circuit performance based on expected semiconductor manufacturing process. This number represents circuit performances expected under nominal applied voltage across the entire operating temperature range. For this pcpn, a simulation of the ring oscillator supplied by a constant voltage from a bandgap reference is carried out for the entire operating temperature range. This simulation yields pulse widths that are generated at a fixed voltage and pcpn values where only the temperature is varied across the entire operating temperature range. If the substrate pcpn is identical to the desired target performance, then the substrate would also yield identical pulse widths for each value of the operating temperature range. 
         [0030]    If the substrate pcpn is different than the desired target performance, then the pulse widths produced by the substrate will be either shorter or longer than those produced by simulation depending upon whether the substrate pcpn was faster or slower than the desired target performance. So a comparison has to be made between the pulse width generated by the ring oscillator on the substrate with a simulated value of the pulse with at the value of the substrate temperature at a fixed voltage. The expected pulse width values at the desired target process for each temperature value within the desired operating temperature range are stored in a Look Up Table (LUT) (for example,  118  in  FIG. 1 ) that is addressed by the current substrate temperature, i.e. based on the substrate temperature, the address pointer points to an entry in the LUT that contains the expected pulse width from the ring oscillator circuit at the desired process corner at a fixed bandgap voltage. For this invention, the operating temperature range is 0° C. to 127° C. and this range is divided into 128 steps of 1° C. each. This requires 128 entries in the LUT, one entry corresponding to each 1° C. rise in temperature. 
         [0031]    This resulting pulse width value from the delay lookup table circuit  118  provides a voltage scaling signal in digital form which is converted to an analog voltage signal by D to A converter  122 . This scaling voltage signal is provided to a voltage regulator  130  over line  124 . The operation result of the circuit  125  would be to increase or decrease the resulting voltage of regulator circuit  130  (chip Vdd) based upon the measured temperature of the integrated circuit measured by thermal diode  102 . 
         [0032]      FIG. 2  is a second embodiment of the thermal measurement circuit illustrated in  FIG. 1 . The temperature measurement circuit  225  of  FIG. 2  includes two current sources  200  and  202  which are selectively connected to a thermal diode  208  through a switch  204  connected by line  206 . The diode is actually made up of a lateral PNP device fabricated in CMOS technology. The collector and base of this device are shorted leaving the diode between base and emitter. 
         [0033]    Digital temperature sensors are based on the principle that the base-emitter voltage, V BE , of a diode-connected transistor is inversely proportional to its temperature. When operated over temperature, V BE  exhibits a negative temperature coefficient of approximately −2 mV/° C. In practice, the absolute value of V BE  varies from transistor to transistor. To nullify this variation, the circuit would have to calibrate each individual transistor. A common solution to this problem is to compare the change in V BE  of the transistor when two different current values are applied to the emitter of the transistor. 
         [0034]    Temperature measurements are made using a diode that is fed by 2 current sources, one at a time. Typically the ratio of these current sources is 10:1. The temperature measurement requires measuring the difference in voltage across the diode produced by applying two current sources. 
         [0035]    Line  206  is connected to a “sample and hold” circuit  209  to sample and hold a voltage output of the thermal diode  208 . The address counter circuit  222  operates identically to the address counter, circuit  110  of  FIG. 1  previously discussed. Address counter circuit  222  increments an address every clock cycle which provides a digital signal representing the temperature range of zero to 127° C. over line  220  to the D to A converter  218  which converts this digital signal representing temperature to a voltage. This voltage signal is provided on line  215  to a second sample and hold circuit  213 . Both the sample of the hold circuits  209  and  213  will sample and hold their respective voltages for the comparator  212  so that continuing small variations in temperature from the thermal diode  208  will not adversely affect the operation of this temperature measurement circuit  225 . Upon reaching the measured temperature, the comparator  212  will provide a zero output over line  216  to the address counter  222  which provides a digital signal representing the measured temperature on line  224  to the delay lookup table circuit  226 . The operation of the delay lookup table circuit  226  providing a digital delay value on line  228  to the D to A converter  230  is the same as previously discussed for the measurement circuitry  125  in  FIG. 1 . 
         [0036]      FIG. 3  is a schematic diagram of the IR drop measurement circuit  325  which provides voltage scaling signal to a voltage regulator circuit  326 . A band gap voltage source  300  is connected to a ring oscillator circuit  304 . The ring oscillator circuit  304  consists of an odd number of inverters  302  connected in a loop or ring. The band gap source is obtained from the physical integrated circuit itself and is nominally 1.23 V. A second ring oscillator circuit  306  connected to the chip voltage source provides an output on line  314 . The band gap ring oscillator provides an output on line  312 . A phase detector  308  is connected to lines  312  and  314  to determine the difference or delay between the pulses provided by the two ring oscillator circuits  304  and  306 . The phase detector  308  provides a voltage magnitude output and a voltage polarity output on lines  316  and  318  respectively which in combination represent the delay difference between the ring oscillator circuits  304  and  306 . Lines  316  and  318  are input to a comparator  310  which provides a voltage scaling signal on line  322  to the voltage regulator  326 . It should be understood that this voltage scaling signal on line  322  is based solely upon the IR drop of the integrated circuit. Based on the voltage scaling signal of line  322 , voltage regulator  326  provides the appropriate chip Vdd value. In the preferred embodiment, the two ring oscillator circuits  304  and  306  should be located in close proximity to each other so that the effects of any irregularities across the surface of the integrated circuit will be minimized. 
         [0037]    The frequency response of the integrated circuit (or performance of the integrated circuit) can be measured by using the output of a band gap voltage connected ring oscillator  304  on line  305  of  FIG. 3  and the lookup table containing known delay values based on chip temperature from circuit  226  or  FIG. 2 . This is illustrated in combination with the IR drop measurement of circuit  325  and the temperature measurement of circuit  225  in  FIG. 4 . In the IR drop measurement circuit  325 , the band gap connected ring oscillator  304  provides a second signal connected to an integrator circuit  414 , which takes the pulse signal from the band gap connected ring oscillator  304  of circuit  325  and converts it into a voltage which is then provided to difference circuit  416 . Another input line  415  to the difference circuit  416  is compared to the delay voltage signal output from the D to A converter  230  representing the expected delay based on the measured temperature. The output of this difference circuit  416  represents a voltage indicative of the integrated circuit frequency response or performance of the integrated circuit. More specifically, this signal provided to multiplexer  418  represents the actual integrated circuit performance compared to the expected integrated circuit performance for that temperature. If the expected delay signal on line  415  is less than the delay signal from integrator circuit  414 , the chip is performing below expectations and the voltage Vdd should be increased. Conversely, if the expected delay on line  415  is greater than the delay signal from integrator circuit  414 , the chip is performing above expectations and the voltage Vdd could be lowered to save power. 
         [0038]      FIG. 4  also illustrates the preferred embodiment of the invention combining the temperature measurement circuit  325  output, the IR drop measurement circuit  325  output with the frequency response measurement as discussed above. In this embodiment, the temperature measurement circuit includes a lookup table address register  400  connected to the address counter  210  by line  402  to provide an initial address or to provide an artificially changed temperature that would result in an artificially changed voltage scaling signal. Also, the lookup table data register  406  is provided that may provide a directed input into the delay lookup table  226 . This can be used to provide entries into the delay lookup table or provide bypass data output directly to multiplexer  410  which is input to the D to A converter  230 . In this manner, a programmer could directly control the delay value, which is used to compute the voltage scaling signal on line  428 . The output of the D to A converter  230  is provided on line  415  directly to the difference circuit  416  and to the multiplexer  418 . In this manner the multiplexer  418  may bypass the difference circuit  416  and only provide the temperature dependant table delay value to the driver  420 . The driver  420  is connected to a register  408  by line  438  which can be used to control the amount of signal output on line  424  to the summing circuit  426 . Likewise, in circuit  325 , register  432  provides on line  434 , a signal that can be used to vary the amount of the scaling signal output from the circuit  325  to the summing circuit  426 . The output from summing circuit  426  is the voltage scaling signal on line  428  and is provided to the voltage regulator  436  which in turn provides the integrated circuit voltage (chip Vdd)  440 . 
         [0039]      FIG. 5  is a process flow chart representing the operation of the invention. It is important understand, that  FIG. 5  is not a flow chart representing software execution but of a simultaneous process producing the voltage scaling signal previously discussed in the operation of the different functional units of the present invention. The discussion of this flowchart of  FIG. 5  will also reference  FIGS. 2 ,  3  and  4  respectively. In the start phase  500 , path  524  illustrates the simultaneous operation of the different aspects of this invention. In step  502 , the thermal diode  208  provides an output voltage indicating the measured circuit temperature on line  506  to process block  504 . Process block  504  represents the operation of the address counter  222 , the D to A converter  218  and the voltage comparator  212  (of  FIG. 2 ) in determining a digital signal representative of the circuit temperature as previously discussed. Referring to  FIG. 5 , this digital temperature is provided on path  530  to the delay lookup table in step  506  which provides a digital signal representative of the delay on path  534  to the D to A conversion step  508  resulting in the delay signal voltage provided to the comparator  514  over path  536 . 
         [0040]    Returning to path  524 , the frequency response value measured in block  510  is provided in path  528  to both the integration block  512  and to the compare block  520  by line  538  as discussed in  FIG. 4 . The integration circuit  414  of  FIG. 4  provides the frequency response measurement signal to the compare block  514  over path  542  which is then compared to the delay signal on path  536 . This result of this comparison is provided on path  544 . Returning to path  524 , the measurement of the IR drop from the ring oscillator  306  connected to the chip voltage supply is compared with the ring oscillator  304  connected to the bandgap voltage source in step  520 . The output on path  540  represents the IR drop portion of the voltage scaling signal and is combined in step  516  to produce the overall voltage scaling signal  546  provided to the regulator  436  in step  522 . It is important understand that this voltage scaling signal results from the combination of the measurements for temperature, IR drop and circuit frequency response. 
         [0041]    Regulation of fan speed by data from the adaptive voltage supply 
         [0042]      FIG. 6  is a block diagram of an adaptive voltage supply. That includes an adaptive power management unit (PMU)  622 , a fan speed controller  628  connected by line  626  to a fan  624 . In  FIG. 6 , the temperature sensor,  604  is similar to the temperature sensing circuit of  FIG. 2 , which includes the data provided to a pulse width table  608  from line  606 . The pulse width table  608  is similar to the delay lookup tables  226  of  FIG. 2 . In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 6 , the pulse width table is connected by line  620  to a data register  610  which provides data to and from the pulse width table  608 , to the PMU  622  by line  690  and to the fan speed controller  628  by line  630 . As discussed in  FIG. 4 , the data register  610  provides data on line  620  to multiplexer  612  as does the pulse width table  608  through line  664 . The output of the multiplexer  612  is provided on line  614  to the D to A converter  618  as previously discussed in  FIG. 4 . As was discussed in  FIG. 3 ,  FIG. 6  also includes a bandgap reference circuit  618  and chip Vdd reference circuit  632 . The D to A converter  618  provides the expected pulse width data to the difference circuit  665  which also receives the bandgap reference pulse width from the bandgap reference circuitry  618  provided on line  644 . This difference signal is provided on line  667  to the driver  672 . In the embodiment shown in  FIG. 6 , a process weight register  668  is included to provide a weight value on line  670  to the driver  672  to either increase or decrease the effect of this measured difference the two pulse widths. Register  668  is also connected to the PMU  622 . The bandgap reference circuit  618  is also connected to a difference circuit  642  on line  644  along with the chip Vdd reference signal from circuit  632  connected by line  634 . This signal, as previously discussed, is provided on line  642  to driver  638  and represents the IR drop value. Similarly to register  668 , a register  636  is provided that contains a weighting efficient to either increase or decrease the effect of the IR drop value in the control of the voltage supply output. This register  636  is connected to the driver  638  by line  648 . Additionally, register  636  is connected to the PMU  622  by line  684 . Returning to driver  672 , the output of this driver  672  on line  674  is provided to a summing circuit  654  and to a process sensor register  676 . The process sensor register  676  stores the data representing the process performance data and is provided on line  682  the PMU  622 . 
         [0043]    The summing circuit,  654  also receives the IR drop data from driver  638  on line  652  and the output of the summing circuit  654  is provided on line  650  to a driver  658  which is also connected by line  661  to a regulator register  660  having a coefficient providing how much influence this circuit will provide to voltage supply output or Vdd provided to the overall integrated circuit or integrated circuit core. This weight register  660  provides a connection on line  682  to the PMU  622 . 
         [0044]    However for the purposes of fan speed control, only the data that is present in the data register  610  is needed from the adaptive voltage supply circuit of  FIG. 6 . 
         [0045]      FIG. 7  illustrates another embodiment of the present invention, where a single integrated circuit device  700  includes several cores such as  702 ,  704 ,  706  and  708 . Commonly, the cores would be central processing unit CPU cores. In the embodiment shown, core  704  has been exploded in the diagram to core  710  and includes an adaptive power supply circuit  712 . In one embodiment, each of the cores of the integrated circuit  700  would also include individual adaptive power supply circuits per core. Therefore, each adaptive power supply for each core would provide temperature values to the fan speed controller  716  even though only a single temperature line from adaptive power supply  712  is shown on line  714 . In this manner, the fan speed controller can regulate the fan speed and thus the cooling for the integrated circuit by individual measurements of core temperatures for each core. The fan speed controller then regulates the fan speed based on the collective and/or individual core temperatures. 
         [0046]      FIG. 8  is a flow chart representing the procedure executed with on the fan speed controller previously discussed. The process is started at  800  and progresses through line  802  to start a timer  804 . The operation of the timer is to allow periodic adjustments to the fan speed. In one embodiment, the timer resets every  1000  clock cycles of the CPU. Once the timer is started, the process continues on line  806  to a decision  808  to determine if the temperature measured from the adaptive power supply or supplies are below a minimum temperature value. If yes, this procedure continues on line  810  to block  824  where the fan is turned off or alternatively, set to a low fan speed. The procedure continues on line  826 . 
         [0047]    Returning to decision  808 , if the measured temperature is not below a minimum temperature, the process continues on line  812  to decision  814  to determine if the temperature is below a high temperature value. If so, the process continues on line  822  to block  828  where multiple core temperature values are examined and the core temperature values below the minimum temperature of decision  808  are discarded. The procedure continues on line  830  to block  832  where the remaining core temperatures are averaged. The procedure continues on line  834  to block  836  where the fan speed is set according to the average of these remaining core temperatures. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a simple coefficient could be multiplied by the average of core temperatures to obtain a signal value to be provided to the fan to regulate the fan speed. Upon exiting block  836 , the procedure continues on line  826 . Returning to decision  814 , if the temperature is not below the high of block  818 , the highest temperature of a any individual core is determined. The procedure continues on line  820  to block  838  where the fan speed is then set according to this highest core temperature. The procedure exits block  838  on line  826  which is connected to decision  840 . In decision  840 , it is determined whether the timer has timed out. If not, the procedure just loops back over line  842  until the timer does timeout. In this manner, a small interval of time is provided for a constant fan speed and the effect of cooling to take place. Once the timer has timed out, the process continues on line  844  back to start the timer again in block  804 . 
         [0048]    While this discussed embodiment shows only a single voltage control circuit on the integrated circuit, it should be apparent that multiple voltage control circuits may be utilized to provide different voltages to different portions of the integrated circuit. 
         [0049]    While particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that, based upon the teachings herein, that changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention and its broader aspects. Therefore, the appended claims are to encompass within their scope all such changes and modifications as are within the true spirit and scope of this invention. Furthermore, it is to be understood that the invention is solely defined by the appended claims. It will be understood by those with skill in the art that if a specific number of an introduced claim element is intended, such intent will be explicitly recited in the claim, and in the absence of such recitation no such limitation is present. For non-limiting example, as an aid to understanding, the following appended claims contain usage of the introductory phrases “at least one” and “one or more” to introduce claim elements. However, the use of such phrases should not be construed to imply that the introduction of a claim element by the indefinite articles “a” or “an” limits any particular claim containing such introduced claim element to inventions containing only one such element, even when the same claim includes the introductory phrases “one or more” or “at least one” and indefinite articles such as “a” or “an”; the same holds true for the use in the claims of definite articles.

Technology Classification (CPC): 5