Integrated circuits include increasing numbers of memory access requestors such as video processing units, graphical processing units, general purpose processors, peripherals, and the like. The amount of information consumed by these memory access requesters as well as their expected throughput is constantly increasing.
On the other hand, the power consumption of the integrated circuit should be maintained at a relative low level, especially in integrated circuits that are powered by batteries. Accordingly, an integrated circuit is expected to provide a trade-off between performance (throughput, speed) and power consumption.
Various power reductions techniques include dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), and power gating. DFVS alters the voltage supply level and the frequency of clock signals that are provided to a circuit while power gating involves shutting down the entire circuit or selected portions of that circuit.
The power consumption of various memory access requesters can be reduced by applying DVFS techniques.