Quartus® Prime Pro Edition User Guide: Power Analysis and Optimization

ID 683174
Date 4/01/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

1. Power Analysis

Power consumption is a critical design consideration. When designing a PCB, you must determine the power consumption of the FPGA device to develop an accurate power budget, and to design the power supplies, voltage regulators, heat sink, and cooling system.

The Quartus® Prime software includes the Power Analyzer to help you to estimate the power consumption of your compiled design.

Power Analyzer Tool Settings


The Quartus® Prime Design Suite also provides the Early Power Estimator (EPE) spreadsheet for Arria® 10 devices, and the Intel® FPGA Power and Thermal Calculator for Agilex™ FPGA portfolio and Stratix® 10 devices to estimate power consumption calculated from your predicted design characteristics.

Power estimation and analysis allows you to confirm that your design does not exceed thermal or power supply requirements throughout the design process:

  • Thermal—Thermal power is the power that dissipates as heat from the FPGA. Devices use a heatsink or fan to act as a cooling solution. This cooling solution must be sufficient to dissipate the heat that the device generates. Additionally, the computed junction temperature must fall within normal device specifications.
  • Power supply—Power supply is the power that the device needs to operate. Power supplies must provide adequate current to support device operation.
Note: Do not use the results of the Power Analyzer as design specifications. You must also verify the actual power during device operation to account for actual environmental operating conditions.