May 28, 2009 -- Increasing clock frequency and a continuous increase in the number of transistors on chip have made implementing low power techniques in the design compulsory. These low power techniques are being implemented across all levels of abstraction - system level to device level. Here, approaches related to front-end HDL based design styles, which can reduce power consumption, have been mentioned. As is known, power dissipation has a direct relation with the clock frequency and dynamic power also depends upon the rate at which the data toggles for a given circuit. The design styles mentioned here, focus on several areas of designing using HDL, which are many times not considered significant, as they do not affect the functionality. The guidelines mentioned here are quite simple to implement and mostly unravel techniques that are considered quite trivial, yet have a significant impact on the overall power consumption.

By Kaushal Buch. (Buch is with eInfochips, Ltd.)