Forum Discussion

Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
15 years ago

measuring power consumption

Hi,

I created a custom block and integrated it into the my system using SOPC Builder.

I need to measure the power consumption of my custom block (instead of the whole system), but I am not sure how.

I tried using power play early power estimator but it gives me information on Logic, RAM, DSP etc instead of listing the power consumption of the intended block.

Hm.. how do you guys measure power? Is there a way around this?

Thanks.

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    15 years ago

    Other than creating two FPGA configurations, one without your component and one with it, I don't see any way of measuring the real power consumption of a specific part of an FPGA.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    15 years ago

    What I have done before is make that block my top level entity and run the power play estimator. This kind of gives a general idea. When your design is complete, those numbers may or may not be accurate depending on how Quartus rearranges/optimizes your design - the difference can be so that the numbers generate for that block alone are not meaningful. The suggestion from Daixiwen would yield a more accurate result.