Patent ID: 7423475

Claim:
A device comprising: an application block implementing a user application; a power management block providing a supply voltage to said application block; a measurement block measuring a characteristic comprising a propagation delay of a corresponding signal at a plurality of portions on said application block to generate corresponding measured values, said measurement block comprising: plurality of gated ring oscillators (GROs), wherein each of said plurality of GROs is located at a corresponding one of said plurality of portions, said plurality of GROs generating a corresponding number of signals; a monitor block generating said measured values representing a propagation delay at said plurality of portions, wherein said processing unit determines a strength of process corner of said application block based on said measured values, and said power management block adjusts said supply voltage to an optimum value based on said strength, said monitor block comprising: a multiplexer to select one of said signals; a transition detector generating pulses representing transitions in an output generated by said multiplexor; a counter receiving a clock signal and counting a number of clock periods of said clock signal between two successive transitions generated by said transition detector to generate a measured value corresponding to said output, wherein said measured value is comprised in said plurality of measured values; a capture register storing said measured value; and a processing unit interfacing with said power management block to adjust said supply voltage to an optimum value based on said measured values.