RTL power modeling and estimation of sleep transistor based power gating

Abstract

We present an accurate RT level estimation methodology describing the power consumption of a component under power gating. By developing separate models for the on- and off-state and the transition cost between them, we can limit errors to below 10% compared to SPICE. The models support several implementation styles of power gating as NMOS/PMOS or Super-Cutoff. Additionally the models can be used to size the sleep transistors more accurate. We show, how the models can be integrated into a high level power estimation framework supporting design space exploration for several design for leakage methodologies.