Instrumentation Set-up for Instruction Level Power Modeling

Energy constraints form an important part of the design specification for processors running embedded applications. For estimating energy dissipation early at the design cycle, accurate power consumption models characterized for the processor are essential. A methodology and the corresponding instrumentation setup for taking current measurements to create high quality instruction level power models, are discussed in this paper. The instantaneous current drawn by the processor is monitored at each clock cycle. A high performance instrumentation setup has been established for the accurate measurement of the processor current, which is based on a current sensing circuit, instead of the conventional solution of a series resistor.