High-level power modeling, estimation, and optimization

ABSTRACT

In the past, the major concern of the VLSI designers werearea, performance, cost, and reliability.In recent years,however, this has changed and, increasingly, power is beinggiven comparable weight to area and speed.This is mainlydue to the remarkable success of personal computing devicesand wireless communication systems, which demandhigh-speed computation and complex functionality with lowpower consumption.In addition, there exists a strong pressurefor manufacturers of high-end products to keep powerunder control.The main driving factors for lower powerdissipation in these products are the costs associated withpackaging and cooling, and circuit reliability.Tools for the automatic design of low-power VLSI systemshave thus become mandatory.More specifically, followinga natural trend, interests of researchers have latelyshifted to the investigation of high-level power modeling,estimation, synthesis, and optimization techniques that accountfor power dissipation as the primary cost factor.This paper provides a non-exhaustive survey of the mostsuccessful and innovative ideas in this area that have appearedin the literature in the last few years.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization

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

  J. Computer Applications

General Terms:
Design, Performance, Theory