LEMOS Low-Power Design Methods for Mobile Systems

Goal

The integration of a rapidly increasing number of highly complex tasks occupying minimum chip area is made possible by minimising the structural size of integrated circuits.

 

The enormous amount of demanded computing power is provided mostly by operations switching at ever higher frequency. Today, the physically induced power dissipation represents the limiting factor to a further increase of the capability of integrated circuits. Already, the power density of integrated circuits exceeds that of glowing hot plates. Without significant improvements in design methods, power density would very soon reach the level of a nuclear reactor or even of a rocket nozzle. Hence, high power consumption is problematic in regard of heat dissipation as well as of energy supply. So, apart from economic aspects or reliability needs, the reduction of the power dissipation of integrated circuits additionally is of global ecological significance and therefor has to be taken into account early in the design process.

 

One inevitable means for handling the exponentially increasing design complexity is the Electronic Design Automation (EDA). EDA techniques and methods are essential especially for solving the problem of power dissipation.

 

Objectives of LEMOS:

a significant increase in design efficiency and productivitymoving the limit to what has technically not been possible so far due to the problem of power dissipationdecreasing the number of power consumption-dependent re-designsthus reducing development time by more than a thirda drastic reduction of power consumption

 

The product differentiation provided this way will be a substantial contribution to strengthen the competitive position of the German industry. In close co-operation with the partners Infineon Technologies AG and ChipVision Design Systems AG, further Nokia Research Center, Robert Bosch GmbH and Catena Software GmbH, OFFIS is developing methods for early estimation and especially optimisation of the power consumption of embedded systems. This is made possible thanks to the power dissipation analysis and optimisation tool ORINOCO®, first invented at the OFFIS institute and developed in co-operation with ChipVision.

Persons

Scientific Director

Publications
Intelligentes Powermanagement

Nebel, Wolfgang and Helms, Domenik; 002 / 2006

Low-Power-Entwurfsmethoden für mobile Systeme

Hillers, Mark and Schulte, Milan and Nebel, Wolfgang and Pferdmenges, Ralf; 002 / 2006

Impact of Array Data Flow Analysis on the Design of Energy-Efficient Circuits

Hillers, Mark; Proceedings PATMOS 2006; 009 / 2006

Power Estimation at all Levels of Abstraction

Nebel, Wolfgang and Papaefthymio, Marios; 001 / 2005

System-Level Power Optimization

Nebel, Wolfgang; Tagungsband, DSD 2004, Rennes / France; 009 / 2004

High-Level Power Estimation and Analysis

Nebel, Wolfgang and Helms, Domenik; Low-Power Electronics Design; 001 / 2005

Partners
Catena Software GmbH
ChipVision Design Systems AG
Infineon Technologies AG
www.infineon.com
Nokia Research Center
www.nokia.com
Robert Bosch GmbH
www.bosch.de

Duration

Start: 31.10.2003
End: 30.03.2007

Related projects

CLEAN

Controlling LEAkage power in NanoCMOS SoCs