Statistical estimation of average power dissipation in sequential circuits

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we present a new statistical techniquefor estimating average power dissipation in sequential circuits.Due to the feedback mechanism, in sequential circuitspower dissipation in consecutive clock cycles are temporallycorrelated, which violates the basic requirement ofstatistical mean inference procedures. We overcome thisproblem by using a randomness test and a sequential procedureto select a proper independence interval, which in turnis used to generate random power samples. A distribution-independentstopping criterion is applied to analyze thesample data and terminate the simulation upon achievementof the accuracy specification. The technique is successfullyapplied to a set of benchmark circuits.

REFERENCES

• 1: Farid N. Najm , Shashank Goel , Ibrahim N. Hajj, Power estimation in sequential circuits, Proceedings of the 32nd ACM/IEEE conference on Design automation, p.635-640, June 12-16, 1995, San Francisco, California, United States [doi>10.1145/217474.217602]
• 2: Gary D. Hachtel , Enrico Macii , Abelardo Pardo , Fabio Somenzi, Probabilistic analysis of large finite state machines, Proceedings of the 31st annual conference on Design automation, p.270-275, June 06-10, 1994, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/196244.196374]
• 3: José Monteiro , Srinivas Devadas , Bill Lin, A methodology for efficient estimation of switching activity in sequential logic circuits, Proceedings of the 31st annual conference on Design automation, p.12-17, June 06-10, 1994, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/196244.196252]
• 4: Chi-Ying Tsui , Massoud Pedram , Alvin M. Despain, Exact and approximate methods for calculating signal and transition probabilities in FSMs, Proceedings of the 31st annual conference on Design automation, p.18-23, June 06-10, 1994, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/196244.196255]
• 5: P. Schneider , S. Krishnamoorthy, Effects of correlations on accuracy of power analysis—an experimental study, Proceedings of the 1996 international symposium on Low power electronics and design, p.113-116, August 12-14, 1996, Monterey, California, United States
• 6: L.-E Yuan, C.-C. Teng, and S.-M. Kang, "Nonparametric estimation of average power dissipation in CMOS VLSI circuits," 1996 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conf., pp. 225-228, 1996.
• 7: L. Yuan , C. Teng , S. Kang, Statistical estimation of average power dissipation in CMOS VLSI circuits using nonparametric techniques, Proceedings of the 1996 international symposium on Low power electronics and design, p.73-78, August 12-14, 1996, Monterey, California, United States
• 8: A. Hill, C.-C. Teng, and S.-M. Kang, "Simulation based maximum power estimation," 1996 Int. Symp. Circuit and Systems, vol. 4, pp. 13-16, 1996.
• 9: Tan-Li Chou , Kaushik Roy, Statistical estimation of sequential circuit activity, Proceedings of the 1995 IEEE/ACM international conference on Computer-aided design, p.34-37, November 05-09, 1995, San Jose, California, United States
• 10: L.-E Yuan, C.-C. Teng, and S.-M. Kang, "Statistical estimation of average power dissipation using nonparametric techniques," submitted to IEEE Trans. VLSI Systems.
• 11: R. Burch, F. N. Najm, E Yang, and T. Trick, "A Monte Carlo approach for power estimation," IEEE Trans. VLSI Systems, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 63-71, 1993.
• 12: S. M. Ross, Introduction to Probability Models, 5th ed., Boston, MA: Academic Press, 1993.
• 13: Jean Dickinson Gibbons, Nonparametric methods for quantitative analysis (3rd ed.), American Sciences Press, Syracuse, NY, 1996
• 14: R. Hogg and A. Craig, Introduction to mathematical statistics, 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1995.
• 15: A. Leon-Garcia, Probability and random process for electrical engineering, New York: Addison-Wesley, 1989.
• 16: E Billingsley, Convergence of probability measures, Wiley: New York, 1966.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.1 Types and Design Styles
          Subjects: VLSI (very large scale integration)

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization

  F. Theory of Computation
  F.1 COMPUTATION BY ABSTRACT DEVICES
      F.1.2 Modes of Computation
          Subjects: Probabilistic computation

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.2 Installation Management
          Subjects: Benchmarks

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Measurement, Performance, Standardization, Theory