High-level energy estimation of template-based QDI asynchronous circuits based on transition counting

Abstract

This paper introduces an innovative high-level method to estimate energy consumption of a well known family of asynchronous circuits at CSP level, therefore removing the need for performing time consuming SPICE simulation. Our method is based on transition count and helps the PCHB/PCFB template based QDI asynchronous circuit designers to have an early estimation of power with the accuracy of more than 80%. This estimation, obtained from commercial functional simulators, may lead to power optimization of the circuit in high levels of design.