A Probabilistic Power Prediction Tool for the Xilinx 4000-Series FPGA

The work described here introduces a practical and accurate tool for predicting power consumption for FPGA circuits. The utility of the tool is that it enables FPGA circuit designers to evaluate the power consumption of their designs without resorting to the laborious and expensive empirical approach of instrumenting an FPGA board/chip and taking actual power consumption measurements. Preliminary results of the tool presented here indicate that an error of less than 5% is usually achieved when compared with actual physical measurements of power consumption.