How to manage dynamic power in a microcontroller using its non-maskable interrupt
How to manage dynamic power in a microcontroller using its non-maskable interrupt To read the full article, click here
By Ajit Basarur, Shantanu Prasad Prabhudesai, and Nazmul Hoda, Ittiam Systems
pldesignline.com (August 06, 2008)
Abstract
As portable systems become increasingly power-conscious, the need for smart power management becomes equally important. Besides the main processor, an auxiliary Microcontroller Unit (MCU) often resides on such systems to take care of house keeping activities such as various user interfaces and a real-time clock (RTC), which has to tick even when the system is powered off.
In this article, we suggest a mechanism to implement power management scheme for the MCU based on system switch on and off states by using its non-maskable interrupt (NMI) pin.

1. Typical embedded system overview.
(Click this image to view a larger, more detailed version)
Related Semiconductor IP
- eUSB2V2.0 Controller + PHY IP
- I/O Library with LVDS in SkyWater 90nm
- 50G PON LDPC Encoder/Decoder
- UALink Controller
- RISC-V Debug & Trace IP
Related Articles
- A need for static and dynamic Low Power Verification
- FinFET impact on dynamic power
- Dynamically controlled logic gate design for all power modes
- Making interrupt design firmware friendly
Latest Articles
- QMC: Efficient SLM Edge Inference via Outlier-Aware Quantization and Emergent Memories Co-Design
- ChipBench: A Next-Step Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Performance in AI-Aided Chip Design
- COVERT: Trojan Detection in COTS Hardware via Statistical Activation of Microarchitectural Events
- A Reconfigurable Framework for AI-FPGA Agent Integration and Acceleration
- Veri-Sure: A Contract-Aware Multi-Agent Framework with Temporal Tracing and Formal Verification for Correct RTL Code Generation