Assertion-Based Modal Power Estimation

Embedded systems are becoming complex day by day and their increasing demand with shorter time-to-market is forcing designers to migrate to electronic system-level (ESL). One of the biggest issues with such battery-operated electronics is the power consumption. Facilitating power-aware architectural exploration at ESL requires a fast and accurate system-level power analysis capability. Existing frameworks suffer either in terms of accuracy or from the long turn-around time associated with the lower-level power analysis techniques. In this paper, we propose a power estimation technique for a specific class of design that is modal in nature (operation modes). The technique is illustrated through existing system-level design, verification and power estimation frameworks. The technique discussed in this paper provides an overview on how assertions written for verifying the reachability of modes can be utilized to generate directed test cases, which are given as an input to a power estimation framework.