Predictable design of low power systems by pre-implementation estimation and optimization

Abstract

Each year tens of billions of Dollars are wasted by the microelectronics industry because of missed deadlines and delayed design projects. These delays are partially due to design iterations many of which could have been avoided if the low level ramifications of high level design decisions, at the architecture- and algorithmic-level would have been known before the time consuming and tedious RT- and lower level implementation started. In this contribution we present a system-level design flow and respective EDA support tools for low power designs. We analyze the requirements for such a design technology, which shifts more responsibility to the system architect. We exemplify this approach with a design flow for low power systems. The architecture of an algorithm-level power estimation tool is presented together with some use cases based on an EDA product which has been commercially developed from the research results of several collaborative projects funded by the Commission of the European Community.