Power Consumption Comparison: APEX 20K vs. Virtex Devices

Many factors, such as supply voltage, current consumption, die size, and routing structure, affect semiconductor power consumption. For devices with the same supply voltages, the device current determines power consumption. Although modeling can be an effective tool for estimating the current consumption of a particular design, it is not appropriate for comparing the relative current consumption of the same design in different devices. Modeling current consumption in complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs) or field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) is difficult because many factors must be considered, including the percentage of signals switching, channel capacitance, die size, device utilization, routing structure, and embedded memory utilization.