News

National's PowerWise APC Now Available from ARM

June 14, 2004 by Jeff Shepard

National Semiconductor Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) announced that its Advanced Power Controller (APC) is available for licensing from ARM. The PowerWise™ technology-based APC product, used in conjunction with National's high-efficiency power management circuits and the ARM® Intelligent Energy Manager (IEM) technology, can reduce processor core power consumption by up to 75%. National's PowerWise technology is suitable for system-on-chip (SoC) devices in mobile phones and other portable electronic devices.

The IEM technology implements advanced algorithms to optimally balance processor workload and energy consumption while maximizing system responsiveness. The IEM software component works with the mobile device's operating system and applications to dynamically predict the lowest CPU performance level while still maintaining full user quality. The ARM Intelligent Energy Controller (IEC) macrocell then determines the best operating frequency to support CPU performance level for a specific SoC implementation.

The IEC works cooperatively with the on-chip clock management unit to control clock frequency changes and the APC macrocell to adaptively set the minimum required power supply voltage delivered by the external compliant power management chip. The APC product communicates with external PowerWise compliant power management chips using the PowerWise interface, an open-standard interface dedicated to power management.