An integrated battery-hardware model for portable electronics

Abstract

We describe an integrated model of the hardware and the battery sub-systems in battery-powered VLSI systems. We demonstrate that, under this model and for a fixed operating voltage, the battery life decreases super-linearly as the average current dissipation increases. With the aid of analyses and empirical studies, we then show that the implications of this phenomenon are far-reaching and change our perceptions about low power design techniques targeted toward battery-powered VLSI circuits.