Instruction-Level Power Consumption Estimation of Embedded Processors for Low-Power Applications

A power consumption measurement framework for embedded processing systems is presented in this work. Given an assembly or machine level program as input to this setup, the energy consumption of the specific program in the specific processing systems may be estimated. The instruction level power models are derived based on the power supply current measurement technique. The instantaneous variations of the power supply current provide the appropriate information for the accurate estimation of the power consumption at different operating situations of the processor (core) and of the overall processing system as well (consumption of peripheral units). The proposed instantaneous current measuring approach, along with the execution of special test programs for analysis of inter-instruction effects provides a clear insight information of the power behavior of embedded processing systems.