This paper presents a simple, yet efficient method to characterize the effective capacitance in data-path macros for architectural-level power estimation. Given a library of hard-macros, a capacitance model based on linear regression is derived for each macro. A transistor-level tool is employed for capacitance extraction. The capacitance models can be used during architectural-level power estimation. Unlike previous approaches, our characterization methodology assumes no specific word-level statistics of the input data, requires little knowledge about the structure of the modules, allows the user to trade-off accuracy and characterization time, and propagates effective capacitance directly from transistor-level (real) implementations. Simulation experiments on a set of data-path components with various sizes are performed. Compared to a previously published approach, our scheme significantly improves the accuracy of RTL power estimation and produces results within 15% from a transistor-level tool on the average.
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