Semiconductor device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8995218-B2
Application number	US-201313783573-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 4, 2013
Priority date	Mar 7, 2012
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

To provide a semiconductor device including a plurality of circuit blocks each of which is capable of performing power gating by setting off periods appropriate to temperatures of the respective circuit blocks. Specifically, the semiconductor device includes an arithmetic circuit, a memory circuit configured to hold data obtained by the arithmetic circuit, a power supply control switch configured to control supply of the power supply voltage to the arithmetic circuit, a temperature detection circuit configured to detect the temperature of the memory circuit and to estimate overhead from the temperature, and a controller configured to set a period during which supply of the power supply voltage is stopped in the case where a power consumption of the arithmetic circuit during the period is larger than the overhead period and to control the power supply control switch.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A semiconductor device comprising:
an arithmetic circuit;
a memory circuit configured to hold data obtained by the arithmetic circuit;
a power supply control switch configured to control whether a power supply voltage is supplied to the arithmetic circuit or not;
a temperature detection circuit configured to detect a temperature of the memory circuit and to estimate an amount of an overhead from the temperature; and
a controller configured to turn th…

Assignees

• Semiconductor Energy Lab

Inventors

• Koyama Jun

Classifications

• G06F1/206

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F1/3203

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C5/14 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C7/00

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C5/148

  Physics · mapped topic