Calypto develops sequential power analyzer

The company claims the tool provides the industry's most accurate register-transfer level (RTL) power analysis capability that results is significantly more accurate than the decade-old RTL power analysis tools in use today.

Today's tools are based on combinational analysis which limits the accuracy of switching activity propagation compared to the actual sequential circuit activity. Sequential analysis ensures switching activity propagation estimated by the tool closely correlates with real life circuit activity. Calypto claims that PowerPro Analyzer will enable designers to move away from time-consuming, gate-level power analysis flows. These flows require designers to run complex gate-level simulations in order to provide the power analysis tool with accurate design behavior that emulates real-world functionality.

Running those same simulations at the RTL level improves efficiency by 10x, often reducing the overall power analysis task time from days to hours, said Calypto.

Moreover, the RTL simulation results can be provided to Calypto's PowerPro Analyzer without adding to design schedules.

According to Tom Sandoval, chief executive officer of Calypto, Calypto's sequential analysis-based propagation engines capture temporal and spatial correlations across registers that cannot be taken into account by combinational analysis-based solutions.

PowerPro Analyzer with block-level power analysis will be available in October 2009. Chip-level power analysis will be available in February 2010. The tool will be offered for a list price of $50,000.