What Designers Need To Know About USB Low-Power States


In addition to performance and interoperability, achieving low power has been one of the requirements for industry standards specifications. Some of the key specifications like Universal Serial Bus (USB), PCI Express (PCIe), and MIPI have defined power saving features for burst traffic. This whitepaper explains how Synopsys USB IP offers low power using various low power states that go beyond t... » read more

Three Steps To Faster Low Power Coverage Using UPF 3.0 Information Models


Controlling power has its costs. The added power elements and their interactions make verification of low-power designs much more difficult and the engineer’s job overwhelmingly complex and tedious. Early versions of the Unified Power Format (UPF) provided some relief, but lacked provisions for a standardized methodology for low-power coverage. Ad hoc approaches are error prone and highly ... » read more

Power State Switching Gets Tougher


Power state switching delay is a key factor in minimizing power, and getting it right frequently means the difference between a successful design and a dead chip. But tradeoffs are intricate, complex and often involve judgment calls, making this a place where designs can go completely awry. For years, traditional, full-swing [gettech id="31093" comment="CMOS"] process technologies were used ... » read more

Powerful New Standard


In December the IEEE released the latest version of the 1801 specification, entitled the IEEE standard for design and verification of low-power integrated circuits. Most people know it as UPF, or the Unified Power Format. That was the name the first version of it held while being developed within Accellera. The standard provides a way to specify the power intent associated with a design, enabli... » read more