JPH07129288A - Battery-powered electronic equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Object] The present invention relates to a battery-powered electronic device that is driven by a battery and includes a power supply control device that controls the battery, and an object thereof is to realize power saving. [Structure] A structure including a generation means 4 for generating a clock having a prescribed cycle even when the electronic device is not operating,
When the power supply control device receives the clock generated by the generating means 4 in the sleep mode and the setting means 6 that sets the power supply control device to the low power consumption sleep mode when the electronic device is not operating, the setting means 6 is set. And a calculating means 8 for calculating and retaining the remaining battery level when the canceling means 7 cancels the sleep mode. When the non-operating state of the electronic device is judged at the end of the processing of the calculating means 8, the device itself is set to the sleep mode again.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a battery-driven electronic device which is driven by a battery and has a power supply control device which controls the battery, and more particularly to a battery-driven electronic device which realizes power saving. Regarding the device.

In recent years, notebook type computers, which are smaller and lighter than desktop type computers, are becoming popular. This notebook type computer
A configuration that allows battery operation is adopted, and extending the life of this battery has become a major issue.

Now, in a notebook type computer, in order to save power, the display is turned off when there is no keyboard input for a certain period of time, or the disk rotation motor is stopped when the disc is not accessed for a certain period of time. Although such a method is adopted, it is necessary to further reduce power consumption.

[0004]

2. Description of the Related Art A high-performance battery-powered electronic device such as a notebook computer is usually provided with a power supply control device having a microprocessor for controlling power supply control processing related to a battery. Then, for the convenience of the user, this power supply control device is used to calculate the remaining amount of the battery.

In the battery-driven electronic equipment having such a configuration, conventionally, since the remaining battery amount has to be calculated and held even when the power is not turned on, the power supply control apparatus is always provided with a normal value. It employs a configuration that supplies operating power.

[0006]

However, when the power supply is not turned on, the power supply control device executes only the calculation of the remaining battery capacity, and this calculation process does not have to be performed continuously. It's enough if you don't do it periodically.

Nevertheless, conventionally, the power supply control device has been configured to supply the same power as when the power supply is turned on when the power supply is not turned on. From now on, according to the conventional technique, there is a problem that the battery is drastically consumed.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and realizes power saving at the time of adopting a configuration including a power supply control device that is driven by a battery and controls the battery. An object is to provide a new battery-powered electronic device.

[0009]

FIG. 1 shows the principle configuration of the present invention. In the figure, reference numeral 1 is a battery-powered electronic device apparatus having the present invention.

This battery-driven electronic device 1 includes a battery 2 serving as a driving power source, a power supply controller 3 having a microprocessor structure which is driven by the battery 2 and controls the battery 2. The electronic device 1 is provided with a clock generating means 4 for generating a clock having a prescribed cycle even when the electronic equipment 1 is not operating, and a battery 5 serving as a drive power source for the clock generating means 4.

The power supply control device 3 sets the sleep mode setting means 6 for setting itself to the low power consumption sleep mode and the sleep mode releasing means for instructing the sleep mode setting means 6 to cancel the sleep mode. 7
And a battery remaining amount calculating means 8 for calculating and holding the remaining amount of the battery.

[0012]

In the present invention, the sleep mode setting means 6 sets the power supply control device 3 of its own device to the low power consumption sleep mode when the power switch of the battery-driven electronic device 1 is turned off. That is, the self-device is set to the sleep mode in which only necessary minimum processing such as backup of memory data is performed.

When the clock generating means 4 generates a clock while the sleep mode is set in this way, the sleep mode releasing means 7 instructs the sleep mode setting means 6 to release the sleep mode. In response to the result of canceling the sleep mode in response to this instruction, the battery remaining amount calculation means 8 calculates and holds the remaining amount of the battery 2. Then, the sleep mode setting means 6 determines whether or not the power switch is off at the end of the calculation of the remaining amount, and when it determines that the power switch is off, sets the sleep mode again.

As described above, according to the present invention, when the battery-powered electronic device 1 is not operating, the power supply control device 3 is set to the sleep mode with low power consumption, and at the same time, it is extremely necessary to calculate the remaining battery amount. Since the configuration is such that the normal operating power mode is restored for a short period of time and the remaining battery amount is calculated, the consumption of the battery 2 can be made extremely smaller than in the conventional case.

[0015]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to examples. FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a battery-driven electronic device 1 having the present invention.

In the figure, the same components as those described in FIG. 1 are designated by the same symbols. Reference numeral 4a is a clock generation circuit corresponding to the clock generation means 4, which is prepared for generating a calendar and generates a clock signal having a cycle of, for example, 1 second, and 5a is a built-in lithium battery corresponding to the battery 5. The reference numeral 9 designates an input / output port which serves as a driving power source for the clock generation circuit 4a, which serves as a port for signals input to and output from the power supply control device 3.

The power supply control device 3 of this embodiment has an IRQ1.
The first interrupt terminal shown by and the second one shown by IRQ2
The first interrupt terminal IRQ1 is mounted on the battery-driven electronic equipment device 1 and the ON / OFF signal of the power switch of the battery-driven electronic equipment device 1 is attached to the first interrupt terminal IRQ1. AC adapter mounting signal is input, and the second interrupt terminal IRQ2
A configuration is adopted in which the clock signal generated by the clock generation circuit 4a is input.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of a processing flow executed by the power supply control device 3. Next, the operation processing of the present invention will be described in detail according to this processing flow. When the power switch of the battery-powered electronic device 1 is turned on, the power supply control device 3 first enters the normal operation mode in step 1 to control the battery 2 as shown in the process flow of FIG. To execute. In this control process, in addition to executing various battery control processes, the discharge power of the battery 2 is calculated from the current consumption of the battery 2 and integrated, and the calculated remaining power of the battery 2 The remaining amount of the battery 2 is obtained by subtracting the integrated value.

During the control process of the battery 2, it is monitored in step 2 whether or not there is an instruction to shift to the sleep mode. The instruction to shift to the sleep mode is issued when the AC adapter is not attached to the battery-driven electronic device 1 and the power switch of the battery-driven electronic device 1 is OFF. .

When it is determined in step 2 that there is no instruction to shift to the sleep mode, the process returns to step 1 and the control process of the battery 2 is continued.
On the other hand, when it is determined that there is an instruction to shift to the sleep mode, the process proceeds to step 3 to enter the sleep state. That is, the power supply to unnecessary parts is excluded, and the sleep state is performed in which power is supplied only to essential parts.

In the sleep state, in step 4, it is monitored whether or not an interrupt factor occurs. According to this monitoring, when it is determined that an interrupt signal is input to the first interrupt terminal IRQ1, that is, A
When the C adapter is attached or the power switch is turned on, it means that the sleep state is released, and the process returns to step 1. That is, the sleep mode is released, the normal operation mode is restored, and the control process of the battery 2 is executed.

On the other hand, according to this monitoring, when it is judged that an interrupt signal is input to the second interrupt terminal IRQ2,
That is, when it is determined that the cycle defined by the clock generation circuit 4a is reached, the process proceeds to step 5, the sleep mode is released, the remaining amount of the battery 2 is calculated, and then the process returns to step 2 to enter the sleep mode. When it is determined that there is a transition instruction, it returns to the sleep state again. At this time, the time required to calculate the remaining amount of the battery 2 is about 2 to 3 ms at most.

In this way, according to the present invention, when the power switch of the battery-powered electronic device 1 is turned off when the AC adapter is not attached, as shown in FIG. The configuration is such that the operation mode is switched to the normal operation mode for an extremely short time every 1 second to calculate the remaining amount of the battery 2.

[0024]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the power consumption of the power supply control device for battery control provided in the battery-driven electronic equipment device can be significantly reduced as compared with the conventional one, the power saving of the battery-driven electronic equipment device can be realized. .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a principle configuration diagram of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an example of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an example of a processing flow executed by a power supply control device.

FIG. 4 is an example of a time chart of operation processing of the present invention.

[Description of Reference Signs] 1 battery-powered electronic device 2 battery 3 power control device 4 clock generation means 5 battery 6 sleep mode setting means 7 sleep mode canceling means 8 battery remaining amount calculation means

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. In a battery-driven electronic device that is driven by a battery and includes a power supply control device that controls the battery, a clock having a specified cycle is generated even when the electronic device is not operating. A configuration including a clock generation means (4), wherein the power supply control device sets sleep mode setting means (6) for setting itself to a low power consumption sleep mode when the electronic device is not operating; In the mode, when the clock generated by the clock generation means (4) is received, the sleep mode cancellation means (7) for instructing the sleep mode setting means (6) to cancel the sleep mode, and the sleep mode cancellation means (7) is provided with a battery remaining amount calculation means (8) for calculating and retaining the remaining amount of the battery when the sleep mode is released, When it is determined that the electronic device is in the non-operational state at the end of the processing of the battery remaining amount calculation means (8), the leap mode setting means (6) again sets itself to the sleep mode. A battery-powered electronic equipment device characterized by processing. 2. The battery-driven electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the clock generating means (4) is configured to use one prepared for generating a calendar. Driven electronic device.