Cycle-accurate energy estimation in system level descriptions of embedded systems

Simulating performance and energy consumption of embedded systems using a system level description is a challenging task in VLSI CAD. However such simulations are needed to select the best hardware architecture and software organization for a particular application. In this paper, we present an approach for cycle-accurate hardware/software co-simulations of energy consumption in embedded systems. The aim of our work is to provide a simulation framework enabling power estimations for high level descriptions (behavioral C models) of embedded systems that include new hardware components. A system-level cycle-accurate simulator and a processor instruction set simulator are extended with energy models that take into account the transitions in the state of the component per cycle.