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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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11 years ago

SignalTap power consumption

I have a quite large SignalTap instance in my design for debugging. Now I am curios if this will consume considerable power during normal operation (i.e. no JTAG connected) or if this will be negligible?

Does anybody have any info or experience regarding this? (If power consumption is high, I would remove SignalTap for production versions, otherwise it can stay in.)

Regards,

Thomas

www.entner-electronics.com (http://www.entner-electronics.com) - Home of EEBlaster

2 Replies

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

    There's a larger number of registers and the signal RAM clocked with the acquisition clock. Depending on the acquisition clock frequency, the power consumption can be significant.

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

    You were right: I compiled the design without SignalTap and got a reduction of about 400mW in my design - more than I would have expected. (But it was really a large SignalTap, it used about half of the memory of a Cyclone IV GX110.)

    Thanks,

    Thomas

    www.entner-electronics.com - Home of EEBlaster