In-Chip Configuration for Monitoring Power Consumption in Micro-processing Systems

A power measurement technique is presented in this work. The problem addressed is the development of a circuit for accurate measurement of power consumption in micro-processing systems, by means of current sensing. Energy measurements performed over a time period of several clock cycles determine the hardware-software related power parameters of specific groups of instructions. Moreover, this information is useful in power optimization procedures. The proposed configuration can be integrated in the system as a peripheral unit for the evaluation of the core and of the system´s peripherals, offering also built-in self test ability to the low power system.