Power estimation for cycle-accurate functional descriptions of hardware

— Cycle-accurate functional descriptions (CAFDs) are being widely adopted in integrated circuit (IC) design flows. Power estimation can potentially benefit from the inherent increase in simulation efficiency of cycle-based functional simulation. Currently, most approaches to hardware power estimation operate at the register-transfer level r lower levels of design abstraction. Attempts at power estimation for functional descriptions have suffered from poor accuracy because the design decisions performed during their synthesis lead to an unavoidable, large uncertainty in any power estimate that is based solely on the functional description. We propose a methodology for CAFD power estimation that combines the accuracy achieved by power estimation at the structural RTL with the efficiency of cycle-accurate functional simulation. We achieve this goal by viewing a CAFD as action of a specific, known RTL implementation that is synthesized from it. We identify correlations between a CAFD...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ICCAD
• Authors: Lin Zhong, Srivaths Ravi, Anand Raghunathan, Niraj K. Jha
• Keywords: Accurate Power Estimation, CAFD Power Estimation, Hardware, ICCAD 2004, Power Estimation