Switching activity reduction through retiming

摘要

Aspects of the invention relate to techniques for using retiming to reduce circuit switching activity. Switching activity values at output ports of circuit elements of a circuit design are first computed based on switching activity values at input ports of the circuit elements and scaling factors associated with the circuit elements. Based on the switching activity values at the output ports of the circuit elements, one or more regions of the circuit design for retiming are identified. Retiming location information is then determined for the one or more regions. Finally, the identified one or more regions are then retimed to reduce switching activity based on the retiming location information.

主权项

1. A method, executed by at least one processor of a computer, comprising:
computing switching activity values at output ports of circuit elements of a circuit design based on switching activity values at input ports of the circuit elements and scaling factors associated with the circuit elements, the scaling factors representing effects of signal changes at the input ports on signal changes at the output ports, the computing comprising calculating weighted sums of the switching activity values at the input ports of each of the circuit elements using the scaling factors as relative weights; identifying one or more regions of the circuit design for retiming based on the switching activity values at the output ports of the circuit elements; and determining retiming location information for the one or more regions based on the switching activity values at the output ports of the circuit elements, the retiming location information comprising information of one or more circuit nodes for placing circuit state elements to reduce switching activity in each of the one or more regions.