ProPower®
Final Pass Power Optimization
After everything you've done to reduce leakage, you can still do at least 25% better.
ProPower® reduces leakage power by 25% to 75%, even on designs that have previously been optimized for leakage power. ProPower achieves these results by optimizing the use of threshold voltage (Vt) cells in a design. ProPower is an optional add-on to Prolific's ProTiming™ optimization tool, and has been used since 2004 to optimize mobile devices and other low-power applications.
ProPower is the simplest and most effective single tool that can be used to reduce leakage power. This is easy to verify. Because ProPower runs as the final tool in the place-and-route flow, it is easy to tell exactly how much it improves any design.
ProPower is most effective when used with multi-Vt and/or multiple channel length libraries, but can also improve designs using a single Vt. ProPower can also reduce dynamic power.
ProPower is used in combination with ProTiming, so it ensures that any changes it makes have no negative impact on total negative slack (TNS) or worst negative slack (WNS), and never introduces correlation errors.
ProPower achieves power savings by intelligently analyzing designs to determine where power is lost, then strategically replaces power leaking cells with functionally equivalent cells which have lower passive power losses. If multiple threshold voltage (Vt) cells are used, ProPower can swap low-Vt cells with higher-Vt cells. In designs that have not yet been optimized, ProPower typically uses 0.5% to 5% low-Vt cells. If the place-and-route tool supports multiple Vt cells and has already optimized the Vt usage, ProPower will further optimize Vt usage, typically replacing from 50% to 80% of the remaining low-Vt cells.
Because ProPower has access to the detailed parasitic, timing, and signal integrity (SI) information, it is able to achieve better, lower-power results than other tools. Used in multiple-Vt mode, ProPower does not require a place-and-route ECO pass.
ProPower can also be used to reduce both active and leakage power, even if a single Vt is used. In this mode, ProPower reduces the drive strength of non-critical cells to reduce power without worsening critical paths. This mode requires re-running ProTiming and then an ECO pass to correct for movement of terminals.
By design, ProPower does not introduce correlation errors, and through PrimeTime® SI, does not introduce signal-integrity violations. In addition, it uses the proven ProTiming engine, ensuring that reductions in power consumption do not reduce the design's performance.
Features
- Fully compatible with Prolific ProTiming, and therefore Synopsys PrimeTime®
- Reduces leakage power using multiple or single threshold voltage cells, even in pre-optimized designs
- Optionally reduces active power leakage, reducing drive-strength of non-critical cells without adversely effecting critical paths
- Monitors design timing, maximum transition, maximum capacitance, SI effects, and critical range criteria
Benefits
- Reduces leakage power of any design
- Improvement of 25% - 75% on pre-optimized designs
- Maintains original design speed
- No logic restructuring, safe to use at tape-out
The ProPower add-on is installed alongside ProTiming on a system running Red Hat Linux or Solaris. When the design team is satisfied with the PrimeTime setup, ProTiming is launched. From within the ProTiming interface, ProPower prompts the designer to:
1Identify the library files, netlists, and naming conventions.
2Specify limitations of the optimization, such as allowable slack and maximum changes permitted.
3Select the optimization objectives among various strategies to focus on area, power, or Vt changes only.