Adaptive circuit techniques to minimize variation impacts on microprocessor performance and power

Adaptive supply voltage and adaptive body bias may be used to control the frequency and leakage distribution of fabricated microprocessor dies. Testchip measurements show that adaptive VCC is effective in reducing the impact of parameter variations on frequency, active power, and leakage power of microprocessors when 20 mV VCC resolution is used. Using adaptive VCC together with adaptive VBS or WID-VBS is much more effective than using any of them individually.