System power analysis with DVFS on ESL virtual platform

Abstract

In this work, we propose an electronic system-level (ESL) power estimation framework which can support several low power methodologies such as dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) and dynamic power management (DPM). Based on the proposed framework, designers can analyze the system power and develop the suitable low power strategies for different applications in the early design stage. The proposed framework had been applied to a heterogeneous multi-core platform. We rapidly characterized the required power models by using physical power measurement to construct the ESL power estimation environment. According to the experimental results, using the proposed framework can have quite accurate power estimation and correct power trend prediction in different voltage/frequency conditions. We also had demonstrated that the low power methodologies can be analyzed and simulated based on this framework.