Estimation of power and thermal profiles
View Patent ↗Aspects of the invention relate to techniques for estimating power and thermal profiles for an integrated circuit design. With various implementations of the invention, a group of devices is identified in a netlist based on information of the group of devices. The netlist may be a schematic netlist or a layout netlist extracted from a layout design. Power consumption information for the group of devices is determined based on device parameters for the group of devices and a lookup table. The determined power consumption information is then associated with layout location information. A thermal profile may then be estimated based on the power consumption information.
1. A method of power and thermal profile estimation, comprising:
by a computing system:
receiving information of a netlist for a circuit design and information of a group of devices;
identifying the group of devices in the netlist based on the information of the group of devices;
retrieving a current value for one or more devices in the group of devices from a lookup table;
determining power consumption information for the group of devices based in part on the retrieved current value; and
associating the power consumption information with layout location information for the group of devices.
2. The method recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a thermal profile for the group of devices based on the power consumption information.
3. The method recited in claim 2 , further comprising: outputting the thermal profile as a thermal map.
4. The method recited in claim 2 , wherein the determining a thermal profile comprises converting power consumption to temperature using a linear transformation function.
5. The method recited in claim 1 , wherein the group of devices is a group of transistors.
6. The method recited in claim 1 , wherein the netlist is a schematic netlist.
7. The method recited in claim 1 , wherein the netlist is a layout netlist.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the lookup table is searchable by at least channel width.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the lookup table is searchable by transistor type.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the lookup table is generated through previous electrical simulations.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining power consumption information for the group of devices is further based in part on the voltage values computed by a programmable electrical rule checking (PERC) tool.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the determining power consumption information for the group of devices is further based on duty cycle period information.
13. A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing processor-executable instructions for causing one or more processors to perform a method of power and thermal profile estimation, the method comprising:
receiving information of a netlist for a circuit design and information of a group of devices;
identifying the group of devices in the netlist based on the information of the group of devices;
retrieving a current value for one or more devices in the group of devices from a lookup table;
determining power consumption information for the group of devices based in part on the retrieved current value; and
associating the power consumption information with layout location information for the group of devices.
14. The non-transitory processor-readable medium recited in claim 13 , wherein the method further comprising:
determining a thermal profile for the group of devices based on the power consumption information.
15. A system comprising one or more processors, the one or more processors programmed to perform a method of power and thermal profile estimation, the method comprising:
receiving information of a netlist for a circuit design and information of a group of devices;
identifying the group of devices in the netlist based on the information of the group of devices;
determining power consumption for each device in the group of devices from a lookup table comprising power consumption values and being searchable by at least transistor type; and
generating a power profile by associating the power consumption information with layout location information for the group of devices.
16. The system recited in claim 15 , wherein the method further comprising:
determining a thermal profile for the group of devices based on the power consumption information.
17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the lookup table comprising power consumption values is further searchable by channel width.
18. The system of claim 15 , wherein the determining power consumption for each device in the group of devices is further based on duty cycle period information.