Frekvens och spanningsskalning i en inbyggd mikroprocessor; for att mojliggora implementationen av schemalaggning med stod for dynamisk frekvens- och spanningsreglering for energihantering.
Minimizing power consumption is a critical part of many embedded design projects. Thechallenge is to limit the power consumption of the system and at the same time providesatisfactory service to the user. With regards to microprocessors, the main way of limiting powerconsumption during program execution is to adjust the frequency and the voltage at which theprocessor operates.To enable the implementation of real-time scheduling with support for dynamic voltage andfrequency scaling, an exhaustive study of the Freescale i.MX31 embedded microprocessor isperformed. Specifically, the power consumption relationship to all relevant frequency andvoltage settings is investigated. In addition, to enable frequency and voltage scaling in a real-timeenvironment, a complete timing analysis of proposed voltage and frequency scaling methods isperformed and their suitability for use in real-time systems is evaluated.To integrate voltage and frequency scaling capability into OSE RTOS, a software module hasbeen developed for this operating system. The module enables OSE processes to request voltageand frequency changes using a signaling interface. The module has been tested for robustnessand its correct operation together with a real-time dynamic voltage frequency schedulerdeveloped at Enea has been verified. Finally, an evaluation of the power consumption of a testprogram running on the integrated system is performed.