Low Power Design Methodologies presents the first in-depth coverage of all the layers of the design hierarchy, ranging from the technology, circuit, logic and architectural levels, up to the system layer. The book gives insight into the mechanisms of power dissipation in digital circuits and presents state of the art approaches to power reduction. Finally, it introduces a global view of low power design methodologies and how these are being captured in the latest design automation environments. The individual chapters are written by the leading researchers in the area, drawn from both industry and academia. Extensive references are included at the end of each chapter. Audience: A broad introduction for anyone interested in low power design. Can also be used as a text book for an advanced graduate class. A starting point for any aspiring researcher.

In the last few years, power dissipation has become an important design constraint, on par with performance, in the design of new computer systems. Whereas in the past, the primary job of the computer architect was to translate improvements in operating frequency and transistor count into performance, now power efficiency must be taken into account at every step of the design process. While for some time, architects have been successful in delivering 40% to 50% annual improvement in processor performance, costs that were previously brushed aside eventually caught up. The most critical of these costs is the inexorable increase in power dissipation and power density in processors. Power dissipation issues have catalyzed new topic areas in computer architecture, resulting in a substantial body of work on more power-efficient architectures. Power dissipation coupled with diminishing performance gains, was also the main cause for the switch from single-core to multi-core architectures and a slowdown in frequency increase. This book aims to document some of the most important architectural techniques that were invented, proposed, and applied to reduce both dynamic power and static power dissipation in processors and memory hierarchies. A significant number of techniques have been proposed for a wide range of situations and this book synthesizes those techniques by focusing on their common characteristics.

This book provides a practical guide for engineers doing low power System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. It covers various aspects of low power design from architectural issues and design techniques to circuit design of power gating switches. In addition to providing a theoretical basis for these techniques, the book addresses the practical issues of implementing them in today's designs with today's tools.

This book contains all the topics of importance to the low power designer. It first lays the foundation and then goes on to detail the design process. The book also discusses such special topics as power management and modal design, ultra low power, and low power design methodology and flows. In addition, coverage includes projections of the future and case studies.

Design considerations for low-power operations and robustness with respect to variations typically impose contradictory requirements. Low-power design techniques such as voltage scaling, dual-threshold assignment and gate sizing can have large negative impact on parametric yield under process variations. This book focuses on circuit/architectural design techniques for achieving low power operation under parameter variations. We consider both logic and memory design aspects and cover modeling and analysis, as well as design methodology to achieve simultaneously low power and variation tolerance, while minimizing design overhead. This book will discuss current industrial practices and emerging challenges at future technology nodes.

This state-of-the-art survey gives a systematic presentation of recent advances in the design and validation of computer architectures. The book covers a comprehensive range of architecture design and validation methods, from computer aided high-level design of VLSI circuits and systems to layout and testable design, including the modeling and synthesis of behavior and dataflow, cell-based logic optimization, machine assisted verification, and virtual machine design.

In the last few years, power dissipation has become an important design constraint, on par with performance, in the design of new computer systems. Whereas in the past, the primary job of the computer architect was to translate improvements in operating frequency and transistor count into performance, now power efficiency must be taken into account at every step of the design process. While for some time, architects have been successful in delivering 40% to 50% annual improvement in processor performance, costs that were previously brushed aside eventually caught up. The most critical of these costs is the inexorable increase in power dissipation and power density in processors. Power dissipation issues have catalyzed new topic areas in computer architecture, resulting in a substantial body of work on more power-efficient architectures. Power dissipation coupled with diminishing performance gains, was also the main cause for the switch from single-core to multi-core architectures and a slowdown in frequency increase. This book aims to document some of the most important architectural techniques that were invented, proposed, and applied to reduce both dynamic power and static power dissipation in processors and memory hierarchies. A significant number of techniques have been proposed for a wide range of situations and this book synthesizes those techniques by focusing on their common characteristics. Table of Contents: Introduction / Modeling, Simulation, and Measurement / Using Voltage and Frequency Adjustments to Manage Dynamic Power / Optimizing Capacitance and Switching Activity to Reduce Dynamic Power / Managing Static (Leakage) Power / Conclusions

Low-Power Design of Nanometer FPGAs Architecture and EDA is an invaluable reference for researchers and practicing engineers concerned with power-efficient, FPGA design. State-of-the-art power reduction techniques for FPGAs will be described and compared. These techniques can be applied at the circuit, architecture, and electronic design automation levels to describe both the dynamic and leakage power sources and enable strategies for codesign. - Low-power techniques presented at key FPGA design levels for circuits, architectures, and electronic design automation, form critical, "bridge" guidelines for codesign - Comprehensive review of leakage-tolerant techniques empowers designers to minimize power dissipation - Provides valuable tools for estimating power efficiency/savings of current, low-power FPGA design techniques

This book presents novel research techniques, algorithms, methodologies and experimental results for high level power estimation and power aware high-level synthesis. Readers will learn to apply such techniques to enable design flows resulting in shorter time to market and successful low power ASIC/FPGA design.