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P-SAM
System Level Power Simulation, Analysis and Modeling
P-SAM is ChipVision Design Systems' framework for ESL power analysis. It enables system-level architecture and software to be optimized for the lowest power, while traditional virtual platform parameters such as performance and throughput are evaluated.
To develop P-SAM, ChipVision used its leading low power design expertise derived from both university research and its development of tools for characterization, modeling, optimization and synthesis of IP for the ESL design community.
Background
Traditional power analysis early in the design cycle using manual calculations, spreadsheets and educated guesses led to conservative estimations and often resulted in products that were over-engineered. Any ESL power analysis generally involved a complex in-house proprietary solution that became difficult to support. ChipVision developed P-SAM to overcome these issues.
Use Model
P-SAM offers system and software developers a standards-based API, and comprehensive analysis tools. Developers working with Architects View (AV) or Programmers View (PV) virtual platforms have dynamic visibility into the power consumed by the peripherals, interconnect, processor and memory. This approach lets users work interactively with the platform and perform architectural, software, and power tradeoff analysis at a level that was not typically possible before.
Robust IP portfolio
ChipVision is working with leading processor IP providers such as ARC, Tensilica, and ARM to derive uniquely accurate characterization data for these processors. ChipVision's non-competitive position makes formulating future relationships very attractive.
Platform independent solution
Whether your development tool of choice is the OSCI reference simulator, an in-house development environment, or an offering from ARM, Synopsys, VaST, or CoWare, P-SAM's C-based API integrates into the platform and offers additional capabilities unique to that development, debug, and analysis environment.
Characterization
The framework and analysis capabilities of P-SAM use comprehensive underlying characterization tools to populate a power/state table utilized within the framework with power and energy data. This is accomplished in one of three ways for each IP in the platform.
- ChipVision offers a characterization plug-in to PowerOpt™. PowerOpt can analyze your SystemC IP along with user-guided power state information and produce both a fully instrumented SystemC model for use with P-SAM and the associated characterization power/state data file.
- In a user-assisted automated fashion, the RTL can be characterized using commercially available RTL analysis tools, or synthesized to gates, using a native language simulator/synthesizer combination.
- ChipVision's P-SAM provides a GUI for entering power state information for simple IP, or IP for which vendor data sheets such as memory models are available.
P-SAM is ideal for companies developing mobile communications, networking, consumer, or automotive applications, where extending battery life or reducing cooling requirements is important.
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