Accurate energy breakeven time estimation for run-time power gating

ABSTRACT

Run-time Power Gating (RTPG) is a recent technique, which aims at aggressively reducing leakage power consumption. Energy breakeven time (EBT), or equivalent sleep time has been proposed as a critical figure of merit of RTPG. Our research introduces the definition of average EBT in a run-time environment. We develop a method to estimate the average EBT for any given circuit block, considering the impact of circuit states. HSPICE simulation results on ISCAS85 benchmark circuits show that the average EBT model has on the average 1.8% error. The CAD tool implemented based on the model can perform fast estimations with a speedup of 3000 x over HSPICE.

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