Patent ID: 7281140

Claim:
A system comprising: an execution pipeline; a power delivery unit to provide power to the execution pipeline at a specified operating point, wherein the power delivery unit includes a clock gating circuit to control power delivery to one or more units of the execution pipeline, the clock gating circuit including a plurality of gating units that each control a clock signal to an associated unit in the execution pipeline and provide a signal indicative of the activity state of the associated unit that is being monitored for power consumption; a digital throttle to estimate a power state, responsive to activity of the execution pipeline and the specified operating point, and to trigger a change in the operating point, responsive to the estimated power state reaching a first threshold, wherein the digital throttle comprises an activity monitor to estimate an activity level responsive to a signal from the clock gating circuit, the activity monitor including a scaling unit to scale the estimated activity level according to a current operating point.