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Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE '00)
Automating RT-Level Operand Isolation to Minimize Power Consumption in Datapaths
Paris, France
March 27-March 30
ISBN: 0-7695-0537-6
M. Münch, University of Kaiserslautern
N. Wehn, University of Kaiserslautern
B. Wurth, Infineon Technologies AG
R. Mehra, Synopsys Incorporated
J. Sproch, Synopsys Incorporated
Designs, which do not fully utilize their arithmetic datapath components typically, exhibit a significant overhead in power consumption. Whenever a module performs an operation whose result is not used in the downstream circuit, power is being consumed for an otherwise redundant computation. Operand isolation [3] is a technique to minimize the power overhead incurred by redundant operations by selectively blocking the propagation of switching activity through the circuit.This paper discusses how redundant operations can be identified concurrently to normal circuit operation, and presents a model to estimate the power savings that can be obtained by isolation of selected modules at the register-transfer (RT) level. Based on this model, an algorithm is presented to iteratively isolate modules while minimizing the cost incurred by RTL operand isolation. Experimental results with power reductions of up to 30% demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.
Citation:
M. Münch, N. Wehn, B. Wurth, R. Mehra, J. Sproch, "Automating RT-Level Operand Isolation to Minimize Power Consumption in Datapaths," date, pp.624, Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE '00), 2000
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