Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 FPGAs User Guide

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ID 683175
Date 12/03/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents
Document Table of Contents x
1. Overview of the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices 2. Setting Up the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices 3. Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Graphical User Interface 4. Early Power Estimator Worksheets for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices 5. Factors Affecting the Accuracy of the Early Power Estimator 6. Document Revision History for Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 FPGAs User Guide A. Measuring Static Power
1. Overview of the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices x
1.1. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Power Model Status 1.2. Definitions of Power Terms Used in this Document
2. Setting Up the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices x
2.1. System Requirements 2.2. Download and Install the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices 2.3. Estimating Power Consumption with the Intel® Stratix® 10 Early Power Estimator
2.2. Download and Install the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices x
2.2.1. Changing the Macro Security Level in Microsoft Excel* 2003 2.2.2. Changing the Macro Security Level in Microsoft Excel* 2007 2.2.3. Changing the Macro Security Level in Microsoft Excel* 2010
2.3. Estimating Power Consumption with the Intel® Stratix® 10 Early Power Estimator x
2.3.1. Estimating Power Consumption Before Starting the FPGA Design 2.3.2. Estimating Power Consumption While Creating the FPGA Design Importing a File Generating the EPE File Importing Data into the EPE Spreadsheet 2.3.3. Estimating Power Consumption After Completing the FPGA Design
3. Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Graphical User Interface x
3.1. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Input Fields 3.2. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Output Fields 3.3. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Input/Output Fields 3.4. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Field Shading 3.5. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Input Field Dependencies 3.6. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE Buttons
4. Early Power Estimator Worksheets for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices x
4.1. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Common Worksheet Elements 4.2. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Main Worksheet 4.3. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Logic Worksheet 4.4. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - RAM Worksheet 4.5. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - DSP Worksheet 4.6. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Clock Worksheet 4.7. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - PLL Worksheet 4.8. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - I/O Worksheet 4.9. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - I/O-IP Worksheet 4.10. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - XCVR Worksheet 4.11. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - HPS Worksheet 4.12. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - HBM Worksheet 4.13. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Thermal Worksheet 4.14. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Report Worksheet 4.15. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Intel® Enpirion® Worksheet
5. Factors Affecting the Accuracy of the Early Power Estimator x
5.1. Toggle Rate 5.2. Temperature
1. Overview of the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices
2. Setting Up the Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices
3. Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 Graphical User Interface
4. Early Power Estimator Worksheets for Intel® Stratix® 10 Devices
5. Factors Affecting the Accuracy of the Early Power Estimator
6. Document Revision History for Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 FPGAs User Guide
A. Measuring Static Power

2.3.2. Estimating Power Consumption While Creating the FPGA Design

If your FPGA design is partially complete, you can import the Early Power Estimator (EPE) file (<revision name> _early_pwr.csv) generated by the Intel® Quartus® Prime software into the EPE spreadsheet. After importing the information from the EPE file into the EPE spreadsheet, you can edit the EPE spreadsheet to reflect the device resource estimates for your final design.

Table 2.  Advantages and Constraints of Power Estimation if your FPGA Design is Partially Complete
Advantage Constraint
  • You can perform power estimation early in the FPGA design cycle.
  • Provides the flexibility to automatically fill in the Early Power Estimator spreadsheet based on the Intel® Quartus® Prime software compilation results.
  • You can adjust design resources and parameters and see how those changes affect total power consumption.
  • Accuracy depends on your inputs and your estimate of the device resources; where this information may change (during or after your design is complete), your power estimation results may be less accurate.
  • The EPE spreadsheet uses averages and not the actual design implementation details. The Power Analyzer has access to the full design details. For example, the EPE uses values for ALM configuration, while the Power Analyzer specifies an exact configuration for each ALM.

Importing a File

To estimate power consumption with the EPE spreadsheet if your FPGA design is partially complete, you can import a file.

Importing a file saves you time and effort otherwise spent on manually entering information into the EPE. You can also manually change any of the values after importing a file.

Generating the EPE File

To generate the EPE file, follow these steps:

  1. Compile the partial FPGA design in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software.
  2. On the Project menu, click Generate Early Power Estimator File to generate the <revision name> _early_pwr.csv in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software.

Importing Data into the EPE Spreadsheet

You must import the EPE file into the EPE spreadsheet before modifying any information in the EPE spreadsheet. Also, you must verify all your information after importing a file.

Importing a file from the Intel® Quartus® Prime software populates all input values that were specified in the Intel® Quartus® Prime software. Alternatively, you can import values exported from an earlier version of the EPE spreadsheet.

Input values imported into the EPE spreadsheet are the values taken from the Intel® Quartus® Prime software as per the design, or the values that were entered into an earlier version of the EPE spreadsheet. After importing, you can manually edit the values in the EPE spreadsheet to suit your changing design requirements.

To import data into the EPE spreadsheet, follow these steps:

  1. On the Main worksheet of the EPE, click Import CSV.
  2. Browse to an EPE file generated from the Intel® Quartus® Prime software or an earlier version of the EPE spreadsheet and click Open. The file has the name <revision name> _early_pwr.csv.
  3. After the file is imported, the mouse cursor changes from busy to normal. If there are any warnings during the importation, the EPE produces the EPE Import Warnings dialog box. Analyze the warnings carefully to ensure that they are expected. If any of the warnings are unexpected, you must manually modify the corresponding fields in the EPE after the importation is completed. You can copy all warning messages to the clipboard for future reference by clicking Copy to Clipboard. Click OK to dismiss the EPE Import Warnings dialog box.

The following figure shows example warnings that may occur when importing a design from the EPE spreadsheet. The first four error messages indicate that device ordering codes have changed between the two families, so the previous values for Device Grade, Device, Package and Transceiver Grade input fields could not be imported directly, but were set to their default values instead. The last message indicates that the VCC voltage value does not apply to the default device that was selected due to the first four warning messages, so the voltage was set to its default value.

Figure 1. Example Warning Messages During Importation
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