PER-PART REAL-TIME LOAD-LINE MEASUREMENT APPARATUS AND METHOD

A scheme for measuring AC and DC load-line (LL) using voltage and current monitoring apparatus. During calibration for LL measurement, a tested or known workload is executed on a processor or system-on-chip (SoC). The calibration can be done when the processor is first used in a real-time system (customer) scenario, or repeated whenever necessary to compensate silicon aging or other effects that affect the LL values. LL is estimated, determined, and/or calculated for each power supply rail in the processor or SoC. The measured LL is used in calculations that determine the operating voltage of an input voltage regulator (VR) at run time, thereby optimizing the power/performance characteristics of that specific system.