AROMA: A highly accurate microcomponent-based approach for embedded processor power analysis

We propose a new embedded processor power analysis approach that maps instruction executions to microarchitecture components for highly efficient and accurate power evaluations, which are crucial for embedded system designs. We observe that in practice, the execution of each high-level instruction in a processor always triggers the same microcomponent activity sequence while the difference of power consumption values of different instructions is mainly due to timing variations caused by hazards and cache misses. Hence, by incorporating accurately pre-characterized microcomponent power consumption values into an efficient instruction-microcomponent processor timing simulation tool, we construct a highly accurate embedded processor power analysis tool. Additionally, based on the proposed approach, we accurately and effortlessly capture the power waveform at any time point for power profiling, peak power and dynamic thermal distribution analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed approach is nearly as accurate as gate-level simulators, with an error rate of less than 1.2% while achieving simulation speeds of up to 20 MIPS, five orders faster than a commercial gate-level simulator.