Field
The disclosure relates to apparatuses with adjustable sensor accuracy settings and, in particular, to electronic apparatuses and integrated circuits (ICs) with dynamic sensor accuracy setting thresholds.
Background
Implementing sensors in an IC may be helpful in improving the performance of the IC in various ways. For example, temperature sensors may be placed in an IC for wireless communication to manage and to mitigate the heat generated by operations of the IC. Wireless communication technologies and devices (e.g., cellular phones, tablets, laptops, etc.) have grown in popularity and usage over the past decade. These electronic apparatuses have grown in complexity and now commonly incorporate multiple processors (e.g., baseband processor and/or application processor) and other ICs that allow the users to run complex and power intensive software applications (e.g., music players, web browsers, video streaming applications, etc.). To meet the increasing performance demands, these ICs have increased in complexity and operate at clock frequencies in the gigahertz range. As a result, substantial heat may be produced while operating these processors. The heat generated by the processors may affect performance and reliability of the device. For example, both performance and reliability of the IC may degrade when operating at high temperature. The temperature sensors help to manage the thermal issue by detecting hot spots on the IC to allow mitigation measures to keep the heat generated within a thermal ceiling.
However, the operations of the sensors, such as the aforementioned temperature sensors, consume power. On the other hand, operating in certain regions (e.g., the IC operating near the thermal ceiling) may need accurate temperature measurements for the mitigation measures to properly function. Thus, one design concern is how to balance the power consumption of the sensors and the accuracy needs of the IC.