A system and method provide adaptive frequency scaling for predicting the load on a processing unit and dynamically changing its clock frequency while keeping the synchronization with other processing units. The amount of data in an input memory waiting to be processed is a good indicator of the current load and thus embodiments of the present invention utilize the same concept for predicting the load on the processing unit. The frequency of operation is thus changed on the basis of the percentage of memory being occupied by its input data. Algorithms according to embodiments of the present invention allow the processing unit to use the maximum possible clock frequency only when it is required and to run at some lower frequencies in low processing power requirements. Operating the circuit at low frequency helps in reducing power consumption.