ece260b w05 power intro

ECE 260B CSE 241A Power Consumption 1 http:/ /vlsicad.ucsd.edu

ECE260B CSE241AWinter 2005

Power Consumption

Website: http:/ /vlsicad.ucsd.edu/courses/ece260b-w05


VLSI Design MetricsArea / cost

Performance

Power consumption

Reliability

Figure courtesy, D. Singh

l Manufacturing yieldl Signal integrity (e.g., crosstalk, supply voltage drop, etc.)l Logic correctness / acceptable performance variation under

process, operating condition variationsl Expected lifetime (due to eletromigration, soft-error, peak current,

etc.)


Power Dissipation

P6Pentium proc

486386

2868086

808580808008

4004

0.1

1

10

100

1971 1974 1978 1985 1992 2000Year

Pow

er

(Wat

ts)

Lead Microprocessors power continues to increase

Courtesy, Intel

Power delivery and dissipation will be prohibitive(?)


Power Density

400480088080

8085

8086

286 386 486Pentium proc

P6

1

10

100

1000

10000

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010Year

Pow

er

Densi

ty (W

/cm

2)

Hot Plate

NuclearReactor

RocketNozzle

Power density too high to keep junctions at low temp(?)Courtesy, Intel


Low Power Design DriversConsumer products

l Affects expected battery lifetimel Slow development of battery technology (90-110 Watt-hrs/Kg)l Low power reducing energy consumption

High performance designsl Increasingly expensive packaging and cooling strategies

- Size, weight, heat sinks, - Air, liquid cooling mechanism

l Supply voltage drop l Temperature

- Every 10OC increase in operating temperature roughly doubles a components failure rate

l Low power reducing peak power consumption for less thermal effects, better signal integrity and reliability

- Signal integrity / logic correctness / acceptable performance variation / design lifetime


Low Power Design Metrics

Energy efficiency in Joulesl Energy = power * delay (Joules = Watts * seconds)l Affects battery lifetime

Average power consumption in Wattsl Results in thermal effectsl Sets packaging limits (50W / cm2 ? 120W total ?) ($1/Watt ?)

Worst case supply currentl Simultaneous transistor switchingl Supply voltage drop performance degradationl Maximum device current device lifetimel Electromigration wire lifetime


Power Versus Energy

Watts

time

Power is height of curve

Watts

time

Approach 1

Approach 2

Approach 2

Approach 1

Energy is area under curve

Lower power design could simply be slower

Two approaches require the same energy

Slide courtesy of Mary Jane Irwin, PSU


Low Power Design Objectives

Worst case supply current IAverage power P = I V

l Maximum cycle powerl Maximum N-cycle powerl Maximum sustainable power

Energy E = P dtEnergy-delay products

l Simultaneous power reduction and performance optimization

Usually to reduce average power under timing constraints


Outline

Problem statementPower dissipation componentsPower estimationOptimization techniques


Static CMOS Gate Power

Power dissipation in static CMOS gate: 3 components

Dynamic capacitive (switching, useful) powerl Still dominant component in current technologyl Charging and discharging the capacitor

Crowbar current (short-circuit power)l During a transition, current flows through both P and N

transistors simultaneously for a SHORT period of timel Slow transitions worsen short-circuit power

Leakage (useless power) currentl Even when a device is nominally OFF (VGS=0), a small amount of

current is still flowingl With many devices, can add up to hundreds of mW



Reducing Dynamic Capacitive (Switching) Power

Pdyn = CL VDD2 P01 f

Capacitance:Function of fan-out, wire length, transistor sizes

Supply Voltage:Has been dropping with successive generations

Clock frequency:Increasing

Activity factor:How often, on average, do wires switch?



Crowbar (Short-Circuit) Current

Finite slope of the input signal causes a direct current path between VDD and GND for a short period of time during switching when both the NMOS and PMOS transistors are conducting

When VTN < VIN < VDD+VTPl Both transistors are ONl Current flowing directly from

VDD to VGND is crowbar current

Usually not a problem, e.g.,l P is ON strongly (LIN but with

small VDS if at all)l N is barely ON

time

V ITransition

RNCL

RP

Slide courtesy of Ken Yang, UCLA


Leakage (Inactive, Useless) PowerThree sources of leakageThe dominant is the Source-to-Drain leakage current

l Even when VGS = 0, a small amount of charge is still present under the gate

l Exponentially related to the gate (and S/D) voltage

Source/Drain are junctions and some amount of reverse bias, IS is present

l Typically much smaller than S/D leakage

Gate tunneling leakagel When tox is only 5-10atoms, easy for tunneling current to flowl More of an issue sub 0.10-m technology

I DWL

exp q V GSV T /nkT

Slide courtesy of Ken Yang, UCLA


2001 ITRS Projections of 1/ and Isd,leak for HP, LP Logic

100

1000

10000

2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

Year

1/

(GH

z)

1.E-06

1.E-05

1.E-04

1.E-03

1.E-02

1.E-01

1.E+00

1.E+01

Isd

,leak (A/

m)

`

Isd,leakLow pwr

Isd,leakHigh Perf.

1/High Perf.

1/Low Pwr


Projections for Low Power Gate Leakage

Need for high K driven by Low Power, not High Performance

0.0001

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

10

100

1000

10000

100000

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2010 2013 2016

Year

J gat

e (n

orm

aliz

ed)

0.00

0.10

0.20

0.30

0.40

0.50

0.60

0.70

0.80

0.90

1.00

To

x (n

orm

alized)Simulated Igate, oxy-nitride

Igate spec. from ITRS

Oxy-nitride no longer adequate: high K needed

Tox


Summary: Power and Energy Equations

E = CL VDD2 P01 + tsc VDD Ipeak P01 + VDD Ileakage

P = CL VDD2 f01 + tscVDD Ipeak f01 + VDD IleakageDynamic power(~90% today and

decreasing relatively)

Short-circuit power

(~8% today and decreasing absolutely)

Leakage power(~2% today and

increasing relatively)

f01 = P01 * fclock


Designers need to comprehend issues of memory and logic power, speed/power tradeoffs at the process (HiPerf vs. LowPower) level,


Outline



Design Abstraction Levels

BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization

TransistorOptimization

Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

Slide courtesy, Prof. J. Rabaey, UCB


Transistor Level Power Estimation

BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

Power Analysis

Current Flows

Circuit Simulation



Power EstimationDynamic Analysis

Simulationl requires representative simulation vectors

- Derived by designer- Automatic (Monte Carlo)

Transitor level (PowerMill)l Very accurate l Much faster than SPICE

Gate level (Powergate, DesignPower)l Faster than transistor levell Still very accurate due to good modeling of power dissipation at

cell-level


Power Ingredients

VDD

In Out

CL

Dynamic Dissipation

Short-Circuit Currents

Static Dissipation

Pdyn = CLVDDVswf01

Psc = VDDIsc

Pstat = VDDIleakISC



Transistor-Level Power Estimation

Spice is the reference, but too slowCommercial tools claim to be within 10% of SPICE

accuracy and up to 1000X faster

I

tP= 1

T0

T

i t v t dt



Timing Simulation

Vdd

out1 out2in

out3

i(Vdd)

in

out1

out2

out3

Vdd-Vth

Uses simplified (table-lookup) transistor model Handles leakage, direct path, and reduced swing

Up to 2 orders of magnitude faster than SPICE



Switch-Level Simulation

A

BX

F

Cap

(fF/b

it)

Sample

0102030405060708090

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

IRSIMSPICE

Up to 3 Orders of Magnitude Faster than Circuit Accurate for Dynamic Power Unreliable on leakage and direct path currents



Perspective on accuracy and speed

Comparison between circuit simulation (SPICE)and timing or switch analysis

Adder Shift Register% Error Speedup % Error Speedup

Timing 6 15 7 3.7Switch 27 60 4 22



Transistor Level Power Estimation Tools

PowerMill Epic

Star-ADM Avant!

LSIMAnalyst

MentorGraphics

Mixed analog/digital simulation

Analytic closed-form model

Mixed transistor/gate simulation

Series-Parallel Switch algorithm

Mixed transistor/gate simulation

Piecewise linear model




BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Gate-Level Power Estimation

Dynamic Switching Power (Isw) [70-90%]

Also referred to as capacitive power

Internal (Short-Circuit) Power (Iint) [10-30%] Also referred to as short circuit power

Static Leakage Power (Ileak) [< 1%]

Sub-threshold leakage dominates, some due to leakage substrate

InputTransition

V

IntISWI

N

LeakIiC

GND

Complete power model provides infrastructure for analysis and optimization



Gate-Level Power Estimation

state of the gate input slope output load temperature fabrication process

toggle rate




ToggleRates

BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

ProbabilisticAnalysis Simulation

PowerAnalysis

Simulationwith integratedPower Analysis



Simulation Based Power Estimation

Problems:l The relationship of power versus primary input probabilities

and activities is acomplicated surface.

l The existing methods use discrete points to approximate such a surface.

- The effectiveness strongly depends on the density of the chosen points.

- The more points one chooses, the more accurate results.- More points directly translate to longer CPU time.

Slide courtesy, Z. Chen, K. Roy


Toggle Rate Estimation

Probabilistic Propagationl no input vectors neededl much faster than simulationl less accurate than simulationl glitches?

Simulationl requires representative simulation vectors

- derived by designer- automatic (Monte Carlo)



Signal probability and activityl Signal probability - probability of a signal being logic ONE

l Signal activity (transition density) - probability of signal switching

ni(T): the number of switching for i(T) in [ -T/2,T/2]

P i=limT

1TT /2

T /2

i t dt

Ai=limT

ni T

T

Signal Probability and Activity



l Normalized activityf : clock frequency

Normalized power dissipation measurel Approximated power dissipation

Cj : node capacitance Aj : node activityl Normalized power dissipation measure

fanout(j) : fanout number at node j

ai=Aif

P avg=12V dd

2 jall nodes C

jAj

= jall nodes

f anout j a j

Power Dissipation in terms of Activity



Probability Propagation

Let y = f(x1, , xn) be a Boolean function with independent variables xi, the signal probability of f can be obtained in linear time as follows.

where

are the cofactors of f with respect to x1.

Improve runtime by using a BDD

P y =P x1 P f x1 P x 1 P f x1

f x1= f 1, x 2 , . . . , x n , f x1= f 0, x 2 , . . . , x n


Activity PropagationLet y = f(x1, , xn) be a Boolean function with independent variables xi,

the signal activity of f can be obtained in linear time as follows.

where Boolean difference

where is the exclusive-or operation.

A y =i=1

n

P y x i

A x i

y x

= yx=1 yx=0


AND gatesp(1) = sp1 * sp2tp(01) = sp * (1 - sp)

Example

sp = 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25

tp = 0.25 * (1 - 0.25) = 0.1875

Probability Propagation

1/21/2

1/21/2

1/4

1/4

7/16

Propagate



Probability Propagation for Basic Gates

Ignores Temporal and Spatial Correlations



Probability Propagation Problems

0.50.5

0.75 0.375?0.5!

Problem: Reconvergent Fan-out:

Creates spatial correlation between signals

Becomes complex and untractable real fast

P(X) = P(B=1).(P(X=1 | B = 1)



Solution to Reconvergence

b

c

a

0 1

1 0

10

1

0

0.5

0.75

0.375

OBDD

Z = bc + abc

1

0.5

0.250.25

0.125

0.375

Preferred Technique:Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (OBDDs)

Statistics computed in linear time(but graph size could be exponential)

Other approaches:l super-gatesl computation of correlation

coefficients



How to introduce time?

And include glitching effects TOUGH! If one also wants to include spatial effects or be general

Example: Symbolic Simulation Approach (for unit delay)Slide courtesy, Prof. J. Rabaey, UCB


Symbolic Network

Transition Counters

Value of d at time t= 0

Problem: Network can be huge and BDD cannot be created!



Probability SimulationUser specifies typical signal behavior at the circuit

inputs using probability waveforms, which is a sequence of values indicating the probability that the signal is high for a certain time intervals, and the probability that the signal takes transition from low to high.

Propagation is very similar to event driven logic simulation

0.5

0.25

0.75

0.0

t1 t2 t3

0.2 0.6 0.01


How about sequential circuits?

NextState

Comb.Logic

I0

PS0

PSt

It

Next State Logic introduces temporal correlations

between subsequent samples Either assume that all states have equal probability,

or use statistical Markov chains



Gate-Level Power Estimation Tools

DesignPower Synopsys

PowerSim Systems Science

Power_tool Veritools

WattWatcherGate

Sente

Viewlogic

GenashorXpower

POET

Probabilistic based

Simulation based

Asynchronous designs

Simulation based

Simulation based

Simulation based

Simulation based




BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Power Estimation

Simulation l Monte-Carlo techniquel PowerMill at transistor levell Verilog-XL at gate level

Hierarchical simulationl Architectural/gate/transistor-levell Parameterized power model for each module

Statistical estimationl Signal probability propagation


Power Estimation MethodologyRTL library Synthesis

condition

Synthesis P&R

Post-layoutnetlist

PowerCharacterization

PowerMacro-model

database

Power model library generator

Powerlib.vhd Powerlib.v Powerlib.c

RTL design

RTL planning/ mapping

Structure(macro)netlist

Power model inference &Estimation code generation

Enhanced RTL

RTL simulation

Powerreport

Testbenchstimuli

Power waveform / profile


Inaccuracies in Power EstimationIn increasing order:

The number of input stimuli did not cause any error above the 10% mark if we considered at least 10 input patterns

Using a gate-level simulator as opposed to a circuit simulator caused an error of about +/-15%

Repowering and physical design introduced inaccuracies below 20%

Glitch power varied between 7%-43%Internal gate capacitances, which are a function of the

target library, accounted for about half the power

Optimization and technology mapping may cause power estimates to be off by an order of magnitude


Power and Synthesis Flow

Accuracy of Power Estimation

Pote

ntia

l fo

r Po

we

r Sa

vin

gs Behavioral

RTL

Gate

Switch

20%

400%

50%

10%



Expectations

Algorithmic

Behavioral

RT Level

Tech. indep.

Tech dep.

Layout

Power manage

Algorithm selection

ConcurrencyMemory

Clock ctrl

Structural transform.

Extr/decomp

Tech. mappingGate sizing

Placement

orders of magnitude

several times

10-90%

10-15%

15%

20%20%

20%



Power Estimation / Improving Guidelines

Before technology mapping, the accuracy levels are unacceptable

It is necessary to take into account internal gate capacitances as well as wire capacitances

Gate-level estimation implies >15% error Simulation with as few as 10 patterns from typical inputs

for a typical starting state is often sufficient to reach confidence levels matching those of gate-level simulation

Power improving transformations should be l run in late design stages, they should be l applied only if they can predict significant power improvement,

and should be l applied many times (hundreds) to maximize the confidence of

positively impacting the design


Outline



Low Power Design Techniques

Reducing chip and package capacitanceScaling the supply / threshold voltagesUsing power management strategiesEmploying better design techniques


Reducing Capacitance

Minimum area minimum power consumptionWirelength minimization with switching activities as

weighting factorsl Placement / routing / partition / floorplanning

Clock gatingSleep transistors


CMOS Device and Voltage Scaling

Dual transistor threshold l High Vth transistors optimize performancel Low Vth transistors reduce leakage powerl Transistors with the same Vth need to group together

Dual supply voltage l High Vdd transistors on critical pathsl Low Vdd transistors reduce powerl Level-converters between signals of different voltage swingsl Routing cost of dual power supply

Extension of classical transistor sizing algorithm, e.g., TILOS


Power Management Strategies

Inactive hardware modules are automatically turned off to save power (for example, monitors, laptops, etc.)

Transistors on non-critical data paths are slowed down, e.g., by dynamically scaling down their supply voltages (for example, in Transmeta microprocessors)

l Sleep transistorsl Power gating (controllable power supply mechanism)



BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Transistor-Level Power Optimization

Optimizes up to 30,000 transistors at a time

Starts from three initial solutions: initial sizes, all transistors sized up with constant factor, and all transistor identical size

Optimization modes: l

individual transistor sizingl

retain ratios between connected NMOS and PMOS devices

l pseudo-NMOS

Optimization Goals

l Delay

l Power

l Slack

AMPS - Epic




BehavioralSynthesis

RTLSynthesis

LogicOptimization


Place & Route

HDL

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis

PowerAnalysis



Gate-Level Power Optimization

TechLibrary Power Optimization

Logic orGate Netlist Switching Activity

Constraints(timing, power, area)

Parasitics(Capacitance)

Power OptimizedGate Level Netlist

Logic Optimization



Gate-Level Tradeoffs for Power

FactoringStructuringBuffer insertion/deletionDont care optimizationTechnology mappingSizingPin assignment



Factoring

Idea: Remove common expressions to reduce capacitance

Caveat: This may increase activity!

Pa = 0.1

Pb = 0.5

Pc = 0.5



Logic Restructuring

Logic restructuring to minimize spurious transitions

Buffer insertion for path balancing



Technology Mapping

a

b

c

d

slack=1

Smaller gates reduce capacitance, but are slower



Technology MappingExample: 6-input AND Implemented using 6 input NAND, 3 input NAND, and 2-input NAND [Bellaouar, ElMasry]

Library 1: High-Speed

Library 2: Low-Area



Technology Mapping Example

6-input 3-input 2-inputArea 9 11 13Delay (ns) 1.1 0.86 0.83Energy (fF) 6.7 42.5 89.4

6-input 3-input 2-inputLibrary 1 6.7 42.5 89.4Library 2 3.5 19.5 43.7

Mapping results for high speed-library

Energy comparison between libraries



Sequential Logic OptimizationState encoding

l seems to be of minimal impact in general

Data encoding in data pathsl e.g. use of sign-magnitude , one-hot, or redundant representationsl mostly ad hoc

Retiming for low powerl registers can be strategically placed to reduce glitching, or to perform

path balancing

Clock gatingPre-computation



Clock gating

Requires careful skew control ...Scary in current logic synthesis world!



Pre-computation

Other options: guarded evaluation

set output directly

Inputs xi xn are not appliedif pre-computing holds



Power Compiler

Results:l design dependentl library dependentl average 15-20% push-

button reduction in power



Low Power Synthesis

Introduce more concurrency for performance improvement

l Linear power consumption increase

Reduce power consumption by scaling down voltagesl Quadratic power consumption decrease

Concurrency increasing transformationsl Loop unrollingl Control flow optimizations

Critical path reducing transformationsl Logic level minimizationl Retimingl Pipelining


Summary

Design Flow for Power well covered at circuit and gate level

Most emphasis on analysis not much on optimizationOverall optimization results are mixedPlenty of room at the physical end

l transistor sizing, circuit style selection, synthesis for pass-transistor networks, threshold selection


ece260b w05 power intro

Documents

peak power consumption

power consumption website

curvelower power design

watthrskgl low power

supply voltage drop

better signal integrity

joulesl energy

low temp