Estimating power consumption of a circuit design

摘要

Estimating power consumption of a circuit design includes associating, using a processor, each partition of a plurality of partitions of a circuit design with a probability distribution (315). For each partition, the associated probability distribution specifies a distribution for a probability distribution parameter correlated with power consumption for the partition. Using the processor, an output probability distribution specifying power consumption of the circuit design can be calculated according to the probability distribution of each partition of the circuit design (320).

主权项

1. A method, comprising:
associating, using a processor, each partition of a plurality of partitions of a circuit design with a probability distribution; wherein each partition is a portion of the circuit design; wherein for each partition, the associated probability distribution specifies a non-constant switching rate of an output of the partition indicating a variance in power consumption of the partition; and calculating, using the processor, an output probability distribution specifying a variance in power consumption of the circuit design according to the probability distribution of each partition of the circuit design; wherein the circuit design is used to implement an electronic circuit and is in the form of a netlist or a hardware description language; wherein each partition is a clock region or a circuit module; and wherein calculating the output probability distribution specifies the variance in power consumption of the circuit design using Monte Carlo simulation, the Monte Carlo simulation implements random point calculations for the partitions, and each partition point calculation is independent of other partition point calculations.