Emulation of power shutoff behavior for integrated circuits

摘要

A method for modeling power management in an integrated circuit (IC) includes: specifying a circuit design and a power architecture for the IC, the power architecture including a plurality of power domains for specifying power levels in different portions of the IC; determining an emulation module for the IC by including one or more hardware elements for modeling the power architecture in the emulation module; and using the emulation module to simulate changing power levels in one or more power domains of the IC including a power shutoff in at least one power domain.

主权项

1. A method for modeling power management in an integrated circuit (IC) comprising:
specifying a circuit design and a power architecture for the IC, the circuit design including a plurality of circuit elements included in the IC, and the power architecture including a plurality of power domains for specifying power levels in different portions of the IC; determining an emulation module for the IC by including one or more hardware elements for modeling the power architecture in the emulation module, the one or more hardware elements including a first hardware element that receives a signal-value input for a first circuit element of a first power domain of the IC and provides a signal-value output that corresponds to an output of the first circuit element, the first hardware element further receiving a power-shutoff control input for changing power levels in the first power domain between a power-on configuration and a power-off configuration, and the first hardware element further receiving a state-retention control input for saving a state-retention value corresponding to the signal-value output in the power-off configuration; and using the emulation module to simulate changing power levels in one or more power domains of the IC including a power shutoff in the first power domain, the first hardware element providing the signal-value input as the signal-value output in the power-on configuration, providing a power-shutoff value as the signal-value output in the power-off configuration, and in a switching operation from the power-off configuration to the power-on configuration providing the state-retention value as a restored value to the signal-value output before the signal-value input is provided as the signal-value output.