Power Optimization Techniques for Small Low Power Embedded Systems

Power consumption is always an issue in low power embedded systems because batteries used to power such system have limited power capacity. Dynamic Power Management (DPM) and Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) are two major techniques adopted for the purpose of power saving in various types of computer systems. The objective of this paper is to discuss power saving features in 8-bit microcontrollers and how these features are exploited to build small low power embedded systems. Low end microcontrollers commonly used in low end embedded systems generally feature low power modes but lack true frequency scaling making the full implementation of Dynamic Frequency Scaling not practical but partial implementation of this technique in systems built on these processors still result in significant power savings. Possible future works may include a comparison between a system with an operating system and a system without one.