Patent ID: 8181147

Claim:
A system for providing adaptive body bias control, the system comprising: a chip comprising at least one critical path and a module comprising one or more transistors, a parametric process monitor for sensing information associated with the transistors, and a voltage regulator for regulating a bulk node voltage associated with the transistors; a memory device storing critical path data associated with the at least one critical path on the chip and parametric data associated with the chip; and a microcontroller in communication with the chip and the memory device, the microcontroller comprising an adaptive body biasing control module configured to: receive monitored data associated with the transistors from the parametric process monitor; receive from the voltage regulator a proposed adjustment to a bulk node voltage corresponding to the module; based on the proposed adjustment and the parametric data stored in the memory device, determine an estimated gate delay; estimate a critical path delay, based on the gate delay; and if the estimated critical path delay does not exceed a maximum delay corresponding to the critical path data, instruct the voltage regulator to adjust a bulk node voltage.