ECE 260B – CSE 241A Power Consumption 1 ECE260B – CSE241A Winter 2005 Power Consumption Website:

ECE 260B – CSE 241A Power Consumption 1 http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu

ECE260B – CSE241A

Winter 2005

Power Consumption

Website: http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/courses/ece260b-w05


VLSI Design Metrics

Area / cost

Performance

Power consumption

Reliability

Figure courtesy, D. Singh

Manufacturing yield Signal integrity (e.g., crosstalk, supply voltage drop, etc.) Logic correctness / acceptable performance variation under

process, operating condition variations Expected lifetime (due to eletromigration, soft-error, peak current,

etc.)


Power Dissipation

P6Pentium ® proc

486

3862868086

80858080

80084004

0.1

1

10

100

1971 1974 1978 1985 1992 2000Year

Po

wer

(W

atts

)Lead Microprocessor’s power continues to increaseLead Microprocessor’s power continues to increase

Courtesy, Intel

Power delivery and dissipation will be prohibitive(?)Power delivery and dissipation will be prohibitive(?)


Power Density

40048008

80808085

8086

286386

486Pentium® proc

P6

1

10

100

1000

10000

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year

Po

wer

Den

sity

(W

/cm

2)

Hot Plate

NuclearReactor

RocketNozzle

Power density too high to keep junctions at low temp(?)Power density too high to keep junctions at low temp(?)

Courtesy, Intel


Low Power Design Drivers Consumer products

Affects expected battery lifetime Slow development of battery technology (90-110 Watt-hrs/Kg) Low power reducing energy consumption

High performance designs Increasingly expensive packaging and cooling strategies

- Size, weight, heat sinks,

- Air, liquid cooling mechanism Supply voltage drop Temperature

- Every 10OC increase in operating temperature roughly doubles a component’s failure rate

Low power reducing peak power consumption for less thermal effects, better signal integrity and reliability

- Signal integrity / logic correctness / acceptable performance variation / design lifetime


Low Power Design Metrics

Energy efficiency in Joules Energy = power * delay (Joules = Watts * seconds) Affects battery lifetime

Average power consumption in Watts Results in thermal effects Sets packaging limits (50W / cm2 ? 120W total ?) ($1/Watt ?)

Worst case supply current Simultaneous transistor switching Supply voltage drop performance degradation Maximum device current device lifetime Electromigration wire lifetime


Power Versus Energy

Watts

time

Power is height of curve

Watts

time

Approach 1

Approach 2

Approach 2

Approach 1

Energy is area under curve

Lower power design could simply be slower

Two approaches require the same energy

Slide courtesy of Mary Jane Irwin, PSU


Low Power Design Objectives

Worst case supply current I

Average power P = I V Maximum cycle power Maximum N-cycle power Maximum sustainable power

Energy E = P dt

Energy-delay products Simultaneous power reduction and performance optimization

Usually to reduce average power under timing constraints


Outline

Problem statement

Power dissipation components

Power estimation

Optimization techniques


Static CMOS Gate Power

Power dissipation in static CMOS gate: 3 components

Dynamic capacitive (switching, “useful”) power Still dominant component in current technology Charging and discharging the capacitor

Crowbar current (short-circuit power) During a transition, current flows through both P and N

transistors simultaneously for a SHORT period of time Slow transitions worsen short-circuit power

Leakage (“useless power”) current Even when a device is nominally OFF (VGS=0), a small amount

of current is still flowing With many devices, can add up to hundreds of mW



Reducing Dynamic Capacitive (Switching) Power

Pdyn = CL VDD2 P01 f

Capacitance:Function of fan-out, wire length, transistor sizes

Supply Voltage:Has been dropping with successive generations

Clock frequency:Increasing…

Activity factor:How often, on average, do wires switch?



Crowbar (Short-Circuit) Current

Finite slope of the input signal causes a direct current path between VDD and GND for a short period of time during switching when both the NMOS and PMOS transistors are conducting

When VTN < VIN < VDD+VTP Both transistors are ON Current flowing directly from

VDD to VGND is crowbar current

Usually not a problem, e.g., P is ON strongly (LIN but with

small VDS if at all) N is barely ON

time

V ITransition

RN

CL

RP

Slide courtesy of Ken Yang, UCLA


Leakage (Inactive, “Useless”) Power

Three sources of leakage

The dominant is the Source-to-Drain leakage current Even when VGS = 0, a small amount of charge is still present

under the gate Exponentially related to the gate (and S/D) voltage

Source/Drain are junctions and some amount of reverse bias, IS is present

Typically much smaller than S/D leakage

Gate tunneling leakage When tox is only 5-10atoms, easy for tunneling current to flow More of an issue sub 0.10-m technology

)/)(exp( nkTVVqL

WI TGSD

Slide courtesy of Ken Yang, UCLA


2001 ITRS Projections of 1/and Isd,leak for HP, LP Logic

100

1000

10000

2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

Year

1/

(G

Hz)

1.E-06

1.E-05

1.E-04

1.E-03

1.E-02

1.E-01

1.E+00

1.E+01

Isd

,leak (µ

A/µ

m)

`

Isd,leak—Low pwr

Isd,leak—High Perf.

1/—High Perf.

1/—Low Pwr


Projections for Low Power Gate Leakage

•Need for high K driven by Low Power, not High Performance

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

10

100

1000

10000

100000

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2010 2013 2016

Year

Jg

ate (

no

rma

lize

d)

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

To

x (no

rma

lized

)

Simulated Igate, oxy-nitride

Igate spec. from ITRS

Oxy-nitride no longer adequate: high K needed

Tox


Summary: Power and Energy Equations

E = CL VDD2 P01 + tsc VDD Ipeak P01 + VDD Ileakage

P = CL VDD2 f01 + tscVDD Ipeak f01 + VDD Ileakage

Dynamic power(~90% today and

decreasing relatively)

Short-circuit power

(~8% today and decreasing absolutely)

Leakage power(~2% today and

increasing relatively)

f01 = P01 * fclock


•Designers need to comprehend issues of memory and logic power, speed/power tradeoffs at the process (HiPerf vs. LowPower) level,


Outline

Problem statement


Power estimation



Design Abstraction Levels

BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization

TransistorOptimization

Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

Slide courtesy, Prof. J. Rabaey, UCB


Transistor Level Power Estimation

BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

Power Analysis

Current Flows

Circuit Simulation



Power EstimationDynamic Analysis

Simulation requires representative simulation vectors

- Derived by designer

- Automatic (Monte Carlo)

Transitor level (PowerMill) Very accurate Much faster than SPICE

Gate level (Powergate, DesignPower) Faster than transistor level Still very accurate due to good modeling of power dissipation at

cell-level


Power Ingredients

VDD

In Out

CL

• Dynamic Dissipation

• Short-Circuit Currents

• Static Dissipation

Pdyn = CLVDDVswf 01

Psc = VDDIsc

Pstat = VDDIleakISC



Transistor-Level Power Estimation

Spice is the reference, but too slow

Commercial tools claim to be within 10% of SPICE accuracy and up to 1000X faster

I

t

PTi t v t dt

T

1

0

( ) ( )



Timing Simulation

Vdd

out1 out2in

out3

i(Vdd)

in

out1

out2

out3

Vdd-Vth

• Uses simplified (table-lookup) transistor model• Handles leakage, direct path, and reduced swing

• Up to 2 orders of magnitude faster than SPICE



Switch-Level Simulation

A

B

X

F

Cap

(fF

/bit)

Sample

0102030405060708090

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

IRSIMSPICE

Up to 3 Orders of Magnitude Faster than Circuit

• Accurate for Dynamic Power

• Unreliable on leakage and direct path currents



Perspective on accuracy and speed

Comparison between circuit simulation (SPICE)and timing or switch analysis

% Error Speedup % Error SpeedupTiming 6 15 7 3.7Switch 27 60 4 22

Adder Shift Register



Transistor Level Power Estimation Tools

PowerMill Epic

Star-ADM Avant!

LSIMAnalyst

MentorGraphics

• Mixed analog/digital simulation• Analytic closed-form model

• Mixed transistor/gate simulation• Series-Parallel Switch algorithm

• Mixed transistor/gate simulation• Piecewise linear model




BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Gate-Level Power Estimation

Dynamic Switching Power (Isw) [70-90%]

Also referred to as capacitive power

Internal (Short-Circuit) Power (Iint) [10-30%] Also referred to as short circuit power

Static Leakage Power (Ileak) [< 1%]

Sub-threshold leakage dominates, some due to leakage substrate

InputTransition

V

IntISWI

N

LeakIiC

GND

Complete power model provides infrastructure for analysis and optimizationComplete power model provides infrastructure for analysis and optimization



Gate-Level Power Estimation

• state of the gate• input slope • output load• temperature• fabrication process

• toggle rate




ToggleRates

BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

ProbabilisticAnalysis

Simulation

PowerAnalysis

Simulationwith integratedPower Analysis



Simulation Based Power Estimation

Problems: The relationship of power versus primary input probabilities and activities is a

complicated surface. The existing methods use discrete points to approximate such a surface.

- The effectiveness strongly depends on the density of the chosen points.- The more points one chooses, the more accurate results.- More points directly translate to longer CPU time.

Slide courtesy, Z. Chen, K. Roy


Toggle Rate Estimation

Probabilistic Propagation no input vectors needed much faster than simulation less accurate than simulation glitches?

Simulation requires representative simulation vectors

- derived by designer

- automatic (Monte Carlo)



Signal probability and activity Signal probability - probability of a signal being logic ONE

Signal activity (transition density) - probability of signal switching

ni(T): the number of switching for i(T) in [-T/2,T/2]

dt)t(iT

1P

2/T

2/TTi lim

T

)T(nA i

Ti lim

Signal Probability and Activity



Normalized activityf : clock frequency

Normalized power dissipation measure Approximated power dissipation

Cj : node capacitance Aj : node activity Normalized power dissipation measure

fanout(j) : fanout number at node j

f

Aa i

i

nodesallj

jj2ddavg ACV

21

P

nodesallj

janout a)j(f

Power Dissipation in terms of Activity



Probability Propagation

Let y = f(x1, …, xn) be a Boolean function with independent variables xi, the signal probability of f can be obtained in linear time as follows.

where

are the cofactors of f with respect to x1.

Improve runtime by using a BDD

)()()()()(11 11 xx fPxPfPxPyP

),...,,0(),,...,,1( 22 11 nxnx xxffxxff


Activity Propagation Let y = f(x1, …, xn) be a Boolean function with independent variables xi, the signal activity of f can be obtained in linear time as follows.

where Boolean difference

where is the exclusive-or operation.

n

ii

i

xAx

yPyA

1

)()()(

01 ||

xx yyx

y


AND gate

sp(1) = sp1 * sp2

tp(01) = sp * (1 - sp)

Example

sp = 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25

tp = 0.25 * (1 - 0.25) = 0.1875

Probability Propagation

1/2

1/2

1/2

1/2

1/4

1/4

7/16

Propagate



Probability Propagation for Basic Gates

Ignores Temporal and Spatial Correlations



Probability Propagation Problems

0.5

0.5

0.75 0.375?0.5!

Problem: Reconvergent Fan-out:

Creates spatial correlation between signals

Becomes complex and untractable real fast

P(X) = P(B=1).(P(X=1 | B = 1)



Solution to Reconvergence

b

c

a

0 1

1 0

10

1

0

0.5

0.75

0.375

OBDD

Z = bc + abc

1

0.5

0.250.25

0.125

0.375

Preferred Technique:Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (OBDDs)

Statistics computed in linear time(but graph size could be exponential)

Other approaches: super-gates computation of correlation

coefficients



How to introduce time?

And include glitching effects …

TOUGH! If one also wants to include spatial effects or be general

Example: Symbolic Simulation Approach (for unit delay)



Symbolic Network

Transition Counters

Value of d at time t=0

Problem: Network can be huge and BDD cannot be created!



Probability Simulation User specifies typical signal behavior at the circuit inputs using probability

waveforms, which is a sequence of values indicating the probability that the signal is high for a certain time intervals, and the probability that the signal takes transition from low to high.

Propagation is very similar to event driven logic simulation

0.5

0.25

0.75

0.0

t1 t2 t3

0.2 0.6 0.01


How about sequential circuits?

NextState

Comb.Logic

I0

PS0

PSt

It

• Next State Logic introduces temporal correlations between subsequent samples

• Either assume that all states have equal probability, or use statistical Markov chains



Gate-Level Power Estimation Tools

DesignPower Synopsys

PowerSim Systems Science

Power_tool Veritools

WattWatcherGate

Sente

Viewlogic

GenashorXpower

POET

• Probabilistic based• Simulation based

• Asynchronous designs

• Simulation based







BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Power Estimation

Simulation Monte-Carlo technique PowerMill at transistor level Verilog-XL at gate level

Hierarchical simulation Architectural/gate/transistor-level Parameterized power model for each module

Statistical estimation Signal probability propagation


Power Estimation Methodology

RTL library Synthesiscondition

Synthesis P&R

Post-layoutnetlist

PowerCharacterization

PowerMacro-model

database

Power model library generator

Powerlib.vhd Powerlib.v Powerlib.c

RTL design

RTL planning/ mapping

Structure(macro)netlist

Power model inference &Estimation code generation

Enhanced RTL

RTL simulation

Powerreport

Testbenchstimuli

Power waveform / profile


Inaccuracies in Power Estimation

In increasing order:

The number of input stimuli did not cause any error above the 10% mark if we considered at least 10 input patterns

Using a gate-level simulator as opposed to a circuit simulator caused an error of about +/-15%

Repowering and physical design introduced inaccuracies below 20%

Glitch power varied between 7%-43%

Internal gate capacitances, which are a function of the target library, accounted for about half the power

Optimization and technology mapping may cause power estimates to be off by an order of magnitude


Power and Synthesis Flow

Accuracy of Power Estimation

Po

ten

tial

fo

r P

ow

er S

avin

gs

Behavioral

RTL

Gate

Switch

20%

400%

50%

10%



Expectations

Algorithmic

Behavioral

RT Level

Tech. indep.

Tech dep.

Layout

Power manage

Algorithm selection

ConcurrencyMemory

Clock ctrl

Structural transform.

Extr/decomp

Tech. mappingGate sizing

Placement

orders of magnitude

several times

10-90%

10-15%

15%

20%20%

20%



Power Estimation / Improving Guidelines

Before technology mapping, the accuracy levels are unacceptable

It is necessary to take into account internal gate capacitances as well as wire capacitances

Gate-level estimation implies >15% error

Simulation with as few as 10 patterns from typical inputs for a typical starting state is often sufficient to reach confidence levels matching those of gate-level simulation

Power improving transformations should be run in late design stages, they should be applied only if they can predict significant power improvement, and

should be applied many times (hundreds) to maximize the confidence of

positively impacting the design


Outline

Problem statement


Power estimation



Low Power Design Techniques

Reducing chip and package capacitance

Scaling the supply / threshold voltages

Using power management strategies

Employing better design techniques


Reducing Capacitance

Minimum area minimum power consumption

Wirelength minimization with switching activities as weighting factors

Placement / routing / partition / floorplanning

Clock gating

Sleep transistors


CMOS Device and Voltage Scaling

Dual transistor threshold High Vth transistors optimize performance Low Vth transistors reduce leakage power Transistors with the same Vth need to group together

Dual supply voltage High Vdd transistors on critical paths Low Vdd transistors reduce power Level-converters between signals of different voltage swings Routing cost of dual power supply

Extension of classical transistor sizing algorithm, e.g., TILOS


Power Management Strategies

Inactive hardware modules are automatically turned off to save power (for example, monitors, laptops, etc.)

Transistors on non-critical data paths are slowed down, e.g., by dynamically scaling down their supply voltages (for example, in Transmeta microprocessors)

Sleep transistors Power gating (controllable power supply mechanism)



BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Transistor-Level Power Optimization

Optimizes up to 30,000 transistors at a time

Starts from three initial solutions: initial sizes, all transistors sized up with constant factor, and all transistor identical size

Optimization modes: individual transistor sizing retain ratios between connected NMOS and

PMOS devices pseudo-NMOS

Optimization Goals Delay Power Slack

AMPS - Epic




BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Gate-Level Power Optimization

TechLibrary Power OptimizationPower Optimization

Logic orGate Netlist

Logic orGate Netlist Switching ActivitySwitching Activity

Constraints(timing, power, area)

Constraints(timing, power, area)

Parasitics(Capacitance)

Parasitics(Capacitance)

Power OptimizedGate Level NetlistPower OptimizedGate Level Netlist

Logic Optimization



Gate-Level Tradeoffs for Power

Factoring

Structuring

Buffer insertion/deletion

Don’t care optimization

Technology mapping

Sizing

Pin assignment



Factoring

Idea: Remove common expressions to reduce capacitance

Caveat: This may increase activity!

Pa = 0.1

Pb = 0.5

Pc = 0.5



Logic Restructuring

Logic restructuring to minimize spurious transitions

Buffer insertion for path balancing



Technology Mapping

a

b

c

d

slack=1

Smaller gates reduce capacitance, but are slower



Technology Mapping

Example: 6-input AND

Implemented using 6 input NAND, 3 input NAND, and 2-input NAND [Bellaouar, ElMasry]

Library 1: High-Speed

Library 2: Low-Area



Technology Mapping — Example

6-input 3-input 2-inputArea 9 11 13Delay (ns) 1.1 0.86 0.83Energy (fF) 6.7 42.5 89.4

6-input 3-input 2-inputArea 9 11 13Delay (ns) 1.1 0.86 0.83Energy (fF) 6.7 42.5 89.4

6-input 3-input 2-inputLibrary 1 6.7 42.5 89.4Library 2 3.5 19.5 43.7

6-input 3-input 2-inputLibrary 1 6.7 42.5 89.4Library 2 3.5 19.5 43.7

Mapping results for high speed-library

Energy comparison between libraries



Sequential Logic Optimization

State encoding seems to be of minimal impact in general

Data encoding in data paths e.g. use of sign-magnitude , one-hot, or redundant representations mostly ad hoc

Retiming for low power registers can be strategically placed to reduce glitching, or to perform path

balancing

Clock gating

Pre-computation



Clock gating

Requires careful skew control ...Scary in current logic synthesis world!



Pre-computation

Other options:• guarded evaluation• set output directly

Inputs xi … xn are not appliedif pre-computing holds



Power Compiler

Results: design dependent library dependent average 15-20% push-

button reduction in power



Low Power Synthesis

Introduce more concurrency for performance improvement Linear power consumption increase

Reduce power consumption by scaling down voltages Quadratic power consumption decrease

Concurrency increasing transformations Loop unrolling Control flow optimizations

Critical path reducing transformations Logic level minimization Retiming Pipelining


Summary

Design Flow for Power well covered at circuit and gate level

Most emphasis on analysis — not much on optimization

Overall optimization results are mixed

Plenty of room at the physical end transistor sizing, circuit style selection, synthesis for pass-transistor

networks, threshold selection


Documents

ECE 260B – CSE 241A Power Consumption 1 ECE260B – CSE241A Winter 2005 Power Consumption Website: