Arm: System level RTL power estimation using PowerPro

As SoCs grow larger and more complex due to increasing demand for performance and features, power consumption becomes a key factor that drives the cost of operation and reliability. Early power estimation during the RTL development phase becomes very attractive (and sometimes the only option) to understand system-level power for different scenarios. The PowerPro tool can be used for system-level power estimation with turnaround times that are orders of magnitude lower than gate level and with reasonable accuracy in power data. This presentation describes how to use PowerPro effectively to get RTL-based power estimates for large computing systems. Having the right set of input data is critical for generating good quality power estimates from the tool. The presentation provides recommendations on data input, as well as on setting up the tool flow and optimizing the run time. The presentation also discusses the different test vectors used and how the simulation windows are selected to provide representative system-level traffic for power estimation. The presentation concludes by highlighting some of the RTL power estimation results and showing how they compare with gate-level power analysis results. (Presented at U2U 2020).