Scenario-based energy estimation of heterogeneous integrated systems at system level

One of the most important figures of merit concerning mobile devices is their energy efficiency. However, the modeling of such systems is mainly focused on the functional aspects, but not on the power consumption. Therefore, power estimations can only be accomplished late in the design process, after all architectural decisions have been taken. This might lead to designs that are not optimal with respect to power consumption. To overcome these limitations, this article proposes an efficient and flexible power modeling methodology at system level for heterogeneous integrated systems, allowing to combine state-dependent and environmental dependent power models. In a case study, the energy consumption of an RF transceiver of a mobile phone is estimated in a real-life scenario, including the baseband module, the radio channel, and the base transceiver station in a simulative way.