Questions about XPower

[Aman Gayasen]

Hi,
I have some questions about XPower.

1)Can we get a time-based "detailed" report using XPower? I would like
to know the power consumed by each logic block at different instances
of time. Is it possible? (using XPower or otherwise) The -tb switch in
XPower only reports the total power consumed by the entire FPGA at
different time instances.

2)XPower normally reports the average power consumed by different
components of the FPGA over the entire simulation time. Is it possible
to get the maximum power, instead of average power.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Aman
PS: BTW, Is there another place to ask these tool-specific questions?
My questions seem to be too Xilinx-specific; please let me know if
Xilinx provides any such user group which might be a better place to
ask such questions.

 

[Peter Alfke]

Aman Gayasen wrote:

2)XPower normally reports the average power consumed by different
components of the FPGA over the entire simulation time. Is it possible
to get the maximum power, instead of average power.

Why do you care to know?
Instantaneous power is always supplied by the decoupling capacitors.
Most people worry about power because it generates heat and/or
discharges the battery. Both of these actions have a long time constant...

Peter Alfke

 

[Brendan Cullen]

Hi Aman,

Aman Gayasen wrote:

Hi,
I have some questions about XPower.

1)Can we get a time-based "detailed" report using XPower? I would like
to know the power consumed by each logic block at different instances
of time. Is it possible? (using XPower or otherwise) The -tb switch in
XPower only reports the total power consumed by the entire FPGA at
different time instances.

2)XPower normally reports the average power consumed by different
components of the FPGA over the entire simulation time. Is it possible
to get the maximum power, instead of average power.

As you know, time-based simulation file analysis can be performed any time
a VCD file is loaded.

(For those not familiar with this XPower feature, the time-based analysis
will be performed if the file is being loaded from the command line and
the -tb switch is used, or if it is being loaded in the Gui and the "Do
Time based Simulation" box is selected. This will read in the VCD file
and for every time indication it will record the number of transitions
between this and the last and calculate how much power has be generated
for that time period.)

However, the time-based analysis also records the highest value, and this
will be displayed as "Peak Power" in the Summary view and in the text (and
html for Windows) report. It always writes out a text file recording the
power for each time period. This file can be read into Excel or other
graph making utility to produce a graph of power over time.

Further to your "PS", I think this newsgroup is a good place to ask such
questions.

Hope this helps,

Brendan

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Aman
PS: BTW, Is there another place to ask these tool-specific questions?
My questions seem to be too Xilinx-specific; please let me know if
Xilinx provides any such user group which might be a better place to
ask such questions.