UPF

A look at some of the key techniques needed to ensue good code coverage during the verification of low-power SoC designs.

Power intent files have increased efficiency and the use of an IDE can prevent them becoming outdated as a design evolves.

UPF provides a useful way to describe the power-management strategies that should be applied to a design, but using it introduces a number of challenges during low-power debugging.

The verification challenges of using low-power design techniques to enable advanced power-management strategies in complex SoCs.

A look at what it takes to verify low-power SoC designs, including setting objectives and measuring outcomes in a UPF-driven verification strategy

System-level power is the next frontier for a power-intent standard – or rather a collection of them – being developed by a partnership between Accellera, Si2 and the IEEE.

Power intent, signal isolation and level shifting can all be controlled in a UPF-based multi-voltage IC design through careful coding.

This article looks at the way in which various representations of a block of a design have different implications in a UPF based power-aware hierarchical design flow.

Erich Marschner Accellera’s Unified Power Format (UPF) is in production use today, delivering the low-power system-on-chip (SoC) designs that are so much in demand. Building upon that success, IEEE Std 1801-2009 [UPF] offers additional features that address the challenges of low-power design and verification. These include more abstract specifications for power supplies, power states, and […]

Long before the first portable computer batteries exploded, and even before anyone had the first visions of building massive data centers in the cold northwestern states of Oregon,Washington and Alaska, power consumption by electronic devices was a tough problem for chip designers. The difference now is that we are trying to manage power in ever-smaller […]