Press Release
Release date: March 31, 2008
Tensilica's New GUI Helps Cut Chip Energy Consumption
Xenergy Lets Designers Easily Evaluate Processor and Software Energy Trade-offs in Seconds
SANTA CLARA , California, March 31, 2008 - Tensilica, Inc. today announced that it has added a new graphical user interface (GUI) to its popular Xenergy estimator, a unique energy estimator for both Xtensa configurable processors and Diamond Standard processors. This "first of its kind" tool allows software developers to evaluate trade-offs, so their software can be optimized for power, and lets hardware designers optimize the design of Xtensa configurable processors for total energy consumption.
"Today, total energy consumption is a primary design consideration for both hardware designers and software developers in most market segments," stated Steve Roddy, Tensilica's vice president of marketing and business development. "Often, it isn't intuitive which design decisions will have the biggest impact on overall energy consumption for a new SOC design. By using Xenergy, designers can quickly evaluate the trade-offs and know that they've picked the most energy efficient way to design new products."
Xenergy for Optimized Processor Hardware Configuration
Configurable processor technology has long been known for its potential to accelerate performance. But tailoring a processor to a given task can also be used with energy minimization as a key consideration. Using Xenergy, hardware designers can drive Xtensa processor configuration choices to dramatically lower the total clock processor cycles required to perform a given functional workload, thereby reducing total energy consumed. Designers pick from a menu of different configuration options and add custom processor extensions to try to reduce total core power consumption.
The Xenergy energy estimator calculates total energy consumption for a specific software workload on a candidate processor configuration. Comparisons between candidate processors is graphically displayed. Output can be a simple text file or a colorful graph for easy evaluation. Photos are available in the News section of www.tensilica.com.
Tests of processor configurations for common embedded processing kernels such as dot product, the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, Viterbi decoding, and Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) show that the energy improvements from processor customization can range from 2x to 83x (all comparisons using common process, design flow and libraries).
Configuration Dot Product AES Viterbi FFT
Baseline K Cycles 12 283 280 326
Xtensa Energy (µJ) 3.3 61.1 65.7 56.6
Optimized K Cycles 5.9 2.8 7.6 13.8
Xtensa Energy (µJ) 1.6 0.7 2.0 2.5
Energy Improvement 2x 82x 33x 22x
The Xenergy estimator also can be used to evaluate the power savings potential of different process technologies, instruction and data cache sizes, RAM and ROM sizes, and many other Xtensa processor configuration options.
Xenergy for Optimized Software Design
Even after a processor configuration is chosen, or after an SOC has been fabricated, software developers can also use the Xenergy estimator to fine tune their C code to reduce energy dissipation by the processor and its memories. For example, a developer might use the feedback provided by the Xenergy tool to decide to restructure the allocation of data structures in local and main memories to reduce memory and bus accesses, which will lower overall energy expenditures. The Xenergy estimator gives the software developer fast, visual feedback and pinpoints the code hot spots that are consuming the most processor cycles and generating the most memory accesses.
Availability
Xenergy, with its new graphical user interface, is shipping now as part of Tensilica's Software Development Kit, which includes all software development tools, the instruction set simulator, and the Xtensa Xplorer design environment.
About Tensilica
Tensilica offers the broadest line of controller, CPU and specialty audio and video DSP processors on the market today, in both an off-the-shelf format via the Diamond Standard Series cores and with full designer configurability with the Xtensa processor family. Tensilica's low-power, benchmark-proven processors have been designed into high-volume products at industry leaders in the digital consumer, networking and telecommunications markets. All Tensilica processor cores are complete with a matching software development tool environment, portfolio of system simulation models, and hardware implementation tool support.
For more information on Tensilica's patented approach to the creation of application-specific building blocks for SOC design, visit www.tensilica.com.
Company Information:
Name: Tensilica, Inc.
Address: 3255-6 Scott Blvd.
City: Santa Clara
State: CA
ZIP: 95054
Country: USA
Phone: 408-986-8000
FAX: 408-986-8919
http://www.tensilica.com
|
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
| Related Stories: | | Oct 9, 2008 | EDA Software accelerates design closure. |
| Oct 7, 2008 | EDA Software speeds full-chip verification. |
| Oct 1, 2008 | Software extracts HiSIM_HV models for IC-CAP platform. |
| Sep 30, 2008 | EDA Software offers mixed signal implementation solution. |
| Sep 29, 2008 | Online Tool facilitates sensor signal path development. |
| Sep 24, 2008 | Process Design Kit helps create analog/mixed signal designs. |
| Sep 16, 2008 | Software provides data center power usage information. |
| Sep 11, 2008 | Verification IP Software supports PCI Express 3.0. |
| Sep 3, 2008 | EDA Software facilitates RF module design. |
| Aug 22, 2008 | Development Kit helps build embedded processing systems. |
| Aug 19, 2008 | Power Meter Software enhances readability, remote control. |
| Aug 15, 2008 | EDA Software improves RF board design. |
| Aug 12, 2008 | IDE Software facilitates low-power design creation. |
| Aug 1, 2008 | Software measures and extracts DC and RF parameter values. |
| Jul 25, 2008 | Prototyping Kit speeds ARM1176 development time. |
| Jul 22, 2008 | System-Level Library features 80 transaction level models. |
| Jul 22, 2008 | Floorplan Synthesis Solution offers automated functionality. |
| Jul 21, 2008 | EDA Software is offered with WVAN wireless library. |
| Jul 14, 2008 | Embedded Development Kit supports system-on-chip designs. |
| Jun 25, 2008 | Software is used for system level design and verifications. |
| |
|
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
