A multilevel engine for fast power simulation of realistic input streams

Power estimation for validation and sign-off is a critical step in the design process. In this phase, accuracy is a key requirement, but there are hard constraints on the time that can be dedicated to power estimation. Moreover, it is important to estimate the power dissipated by the system while running typical applications, i.e., extremely long streams of validation patterns provided by the designer. The power dissipated by digital systems under realistic input stimuli is not accurately described by a single average value, but by a waveform that shows how power consumption varies over time as the system responds to the inputs. In this paper, we face the problem of obtaining accurate power waveforms for combinational and sequential circuits under typical usage patterns. We propose a multilevel simulation engine that achieves high accuracy in estimating the time-domain power waveform, as well as the average power with high computational efficiency