JEE_V4_N3_A1 Ananthi Kaliyamoorthy S. Manoharan Journal on Electrical Engineering 2230 – 7176 4 3 1 9 Power Consumption, Microprocessor, Low Power, Hardware and Software Today there is a growing need for reducing the power consumption of microprocessors, because they form a major share of the power budget of equipment. Power consumption in microprocessors can be reduced either by hardware, software or both. The power consumption of the processors increases along with increase in transistor count and clock frequencies. Thus there is a need to design a processor which consumes less power without affecting its performance and efficiency. Likewise, each instruction involves specific part of the microprocessor. Therefore, by selecting the correct instruction it is possible to reduce the power consumed by the processor. This paper presents a survey on hardware and software power reduction techniques used for several microprocessors. January - March 2011 Copyright © 2011 i-manager publications. All rights reserved. i-manager Publications http://www.imanagerpublications.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1393