Estimation of sequential circuit activity considering spatial and temporal correlations

We present an exact and an approximate method for estimating signal activity at the internal nodes of sequential logic circuits. The methodology takes spatial and temporal correlations of logic signals into consideration. Given the state transition graph (STG) of a finite state machine (FSM), we create an extended state transition graph (ESTG), where the temporal correlations of the input signals are explicitly represented. From the graph we derive the equations to calculate exact signal probabilities and activities. For large circuits an approximate method for calculating the activities by unrolling the next state logic is proposed. Experimental results show that if temporal and spatial correlations are not considered, the switching activities of the internal nodes can be off by more than 40% compared to simulation based techniques. However, the results of the approximate method proposed in the paper is within 5% of logic simulation results.

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