Power modeling and analysis in early design phases

Low power consumption of electronic devices has been an important requirement for many cyber-physical systems in field. Today, power dissipation is often estimated by spreadsheet-based power analysis. A leading-edge high-level power analysis method has the objective of providing high confidence levels in early design stages, where power design decisions have severe impact. This work examines and compares three high-level power analysis approaches (spreadsheet-based, Synopsys Platform Architect MCO, and DOCEA Aceplorer) by an industrial use case. The first chapter introduces into general power analysis concepts. Chapter two presents different power analysis methods and tools that are applied on an industrial signal-processing use case described in chapter three. Chapter four compares these tools and methods by selected criteria such as power modeling effort and quality of results. Chapter five concludes about the investigated methods.