Reporting Power in ICC

[Gnohz]

Hello everyone,

I am currently engaged in a digital chip design project and need to assess the chip's power consumption. I've already gone through the IC frontend flow using DC and have experimented with the report_power command in DC. However, given that my design incorporates some large MUXs, I am contemplating the use of ICC/ICC2 for completing Place and Route (P&R) and obtaining a more precise power consumption estimation.

I have a few specific inquiries:

1. Is the power consumption data obtained from ICC likely to be more accurate compared to that from DC?
2. In DC, I can specify the switching activity using set_switching_activity and by setting power_default_toggle_rate. I understand that ICC also offers these commands. However, I've noticed that when I modify the default_toggle_rate, the results from report_power appear unchanged. How can I effectively set switching activities in ICC?
3. Apart from report_power, are there any additional commands or tools within ICC for power analysis?

I possess a fundamental understanding of digital chip design and familiarity with the ICC tool. Nevertheless, I aim to delve deeper into power analysis for this project. If anyone can share their experiences or provide resource links, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you all for your valuable assistance!

Best Regards,

 

[ThisIsNotSam]

1 - yes, because routing is now present and the C/R properties of the wires are known
2 - the best way would be to use a real test vector like a SAIF or VCD file
3 - ICC also does rail analysis for IR drop. it also does dynamic power analysis. there is a lot.