ENPCO: an entropy-based partition-codec algorithm to reduce power for bipartition-codec architecture in pipelined circuits

Abstract

This work proposes a new algorithm to synthesize low power bipartition-codec architecture for pipelined circuits. The bipartition-codec architecture has been introduced as an effective power reduction technique for circuit design. The entropy-based partition-codec (ENPCO) algorithm extends this approach as it optimizes for both: power and area. It uses entropy as a criterion to balance between power and area. The ENPCO algorithm is composed of two phases: first, it clusters the output vectors with high occurrence into a group, moving all remaining output vectors into another group. The first group will be encoded in order to save power. Secondly, based on circuit entropy, output patterns are moved between both groups in order to balance power consumption and area overhead. A number of Microelectronic Center of North Carolina (MCNC) benchmarks were used to verify the effectiveness of our algorithm. Results demonstrate that ENPCO algorithm can achieve low power with less area overhead than the single-phase algorithm introduced previously by Shanq-Jang Ruan et al. (1999).