Various embodiments of the invention may be used to find a combination of voltage and frequency that results in a minimum amount of energy consumption in a digital system, including energy consumed by the system's voltage regulator (VR). The process may involve finding a separate point of minimum energy consumption for each of several different modes of the VR, where a mode is the ratio of Vin to Vout for that VR. The smallest value of those points may then be selected as the overall minimum. The process for making this determination may be performed in situ while the device is in operation, and may encompass changes in operational temperature, load, and process variations.
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