Patent ID: 8271811

Claim:
Apparatus in a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) device, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of PHY logic circuits; a power manager circuit coupled with the plurality of PHY logic circuits; a memory adapted for storing queued entries representing information to be transmitted from the SAS device using one or more of the plurality of PHY logic circuits; and a queue manager coupled with the memory and coupled with the power manager circuit, the queue manager operable to determine a current workload based on entries in the memory, wherein the power manager circuit is operable to control the power consumption of the plurality of PHY logic circuits based on the current workload, and wherein the power manager circuit comprises one or more of: a plurality of clock gating circuits each coupled with a corresponding one of the plurality of PHY logic circuits, each clock gating circuit operable to controllably enable and disable a clock signal coupled with the corresponding PHY logic circuit; a clock frequency control circuit coupled with a clock source coupled with a corresponding one of the plurality of PHY logic circuits, the clock frequency control circuit operable to controllably increase or decrease the frequency of the clock source coupled with the corresponding PHY logic circuit; or a plurality of power well control circuits each coupled with a power well associated with a corresponding one of the plurality of PHY logic circuits.