Seven Steps to an Accurate Power Estimation

As a necessary step in any FPGA design, power and cooling specifications need to be properly set in order to create a functioning and reliable system. In most cases, these thermal and power specifications need to be set prior to PCB design and, due to the flexibility of FPGAs, often the FPGA design is not completed or sometimes even started prior to system design and/or PCB fabrication. This creates an interesting challenge for FPGA designers, since thermal and power characteristics can vary dramatically depending on the bitstream (design), clocking, and data put into the chip.

Underdesigning the power or thermal system can make the FPGA operate out of specification, which could result in the FPGA not operating at the expected performance or potentially other more serious consequences. Overdesigning the power system is generally less serious but still not desirable since it can add unnecessary cost and complexity to the overall FPGA design. The task of power estimation is not a trivial one prior to completing the design.