Driving factors for power management

DRIVING FACTORS FOR POWER MANAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating Integrated circuit by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device. The term is no longer as common as it once was, as chips have increased in complexity into billions of transistors.
One of the main challenges is Power usage/Heat dissipation - As threshold voltages have ceased to scale with advancing process technology, dynamic power dissipation has not scaled proportionally. Maintaining logic complexity when scaling the design down only means that the power dissipation per area will go up. This has given rise to techniques such as dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) to minimize overall power.
Low power Design is driven by market pressures, regulatory aspects and technology migration to 65nm and lower. Multi -voltage design is hence essential. Multi-voltage design brings many new challenges to design as well as verification. Almost every engineer who designs and verifies integrated circuits (ICs) today is under tremendous pressure to reduce power. In a rather unprecedented way we are faced with regulatory pressures and process technology factors to reduce power. As is often the case with most design processes, verification is often a large task than the design effort itself.
Semiconductors are increasingly being used in many devices like Mobile/consumer devices.There is also increased awareness that the installed base of semiconductors contributes more to global warming than the entire airline industry.Technology migration which typically helps achieve lower power consumption has complicated matters.the biggest factor in power management is that the main problem is not often "power" it is a combination of (1) Density (2) delivery (3) Leakage and (4) Lifetime.
Density
Refers to the amount of power consumed within an area hence the heat dissipated in an area.often, people confuse density to be the power problem.While heat and associated costs are prominent in the bill of materials and system design,this is not the sole concern.
Delivery
It is the problem relating to the amount of current that has to be delivered at progressively lower supply voltages and the ability to withstand fluctuations in current.Delivery is the most misunderstood of power requirements.However ,it constitutes one of the most important aspects of power management.Often systems come with specifications on maximum current drawn from subsystems.For instance,a USB port in a mobile computer often imposes this restriction.this amount to a design constraint on current delivery to any devices connected to that port.
Leakage
Leakage is the current consumed by the chip even when there is no activity.
Lifetime
It refers to the decreasing reliability of chips due to higher current densities.
These are the four ways in which the impact of power consumption is felt.

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