Fast power estimation for deterministic input streams

Luca Benini, Giovanni De Micheli, Enrico Macii, Massimo Poncino, Riccardo Scarsi

Abstract: The power dissipated by digital systems under realistic input stimuli is not accurately described by a single average value, but by a waveform that shows how power consumption varies over time as the system responds to the inputs. We face the problem of obtaining accurate power waveforms for combinational and sequential circuits under typical usage patterns. We propose a multi level simulation engine that achieves high accuracy in estimating the average power as well as the time domain power waveform with high computational efficiency.