Early Power Estimator for Intel® Stratix® 10 FPGAs User Guide

ID 683175
Date 12/03/2021
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.1. Intel® Stratix® 10 EPE - Common Worksheet Elements

The Early Power Estimator (EPE) for Intel® Stratix® 10 devices is divided into multiple worksheets, each allowing entry of a subset of FPGA resources. Some elements are common to more than one worksheet.

Total Thermal Power

The Total Thermal Power field estimates the total thermal power consumed by all FPGA resources in the specific worksheet. Some worksheets may also provide a breakdown of the components contributing to the total thermal power. The total thermal power displayed in individual worksheets does not include static power, which is reported on the Main and Report worksheets for the whole device.

Resource Utilization

Most worksheets contain one or more fields that provide an estimate of the percentage resource utilization for the modules in the specific worksheet. Such values are calculated based on the maximum available resources of a given type for a selected device. If resource utilization exceeds 100%, the value is highlighted in red to alert you that the current device may not be able to support the resources entered into the worksheet. Additionally, the thermal power value displayed in the Main and Report worksheets is displayed in red for any worksheet whose utilization exceeds 100%.

Power Rail Current Consumption

Most worksheets include a table showing the dynamic current consumption (and standby current consumption, if applicable) for all power rails used by the FPGA resources in the specific worksheet. The same power rail may appear in multiple worksheets, and the dynamic and standby currents reported in the Report worksheet are the sums of all corresponding currents for a given rail at a given voltage in individual worksheets. The Report worksheet also includes static currents, which are not reported in individual worksheets.

Why Typical Power Might Appear Larger than Maximum Power

Due to the methodologies employed by power modeling, instances can occur where the typical power for an Intel® Stratix® 10 device may appear to be higher than the maximum power. Every Intel® Stratix® 10 device is tested during the manufacturing process; this testing includes measuring the maximum static current drawn by each device rail, and total static power consumed across all rails. A given device does not draw maximum current on each rail simultaneously — consequently, the total static power actually consumed by the device in operation, is going to be lower than the sum of the individual maximum static powers measured for each rail.

The Report worksheet (and the Intel® Quartus® Prime Power Analyzer per-rail report) indicate the maximum per-rail static currents based on actual measurements, to help you choose appropriate voltage regulators. However, when calculating total thermal power and total static power, we make more realistic — and generally lower — assumptions for total static power across all rails.

Maximum power values are helpful for determining the proper regulator size for power delivery, and the proper thermal solution for cooling, to ensure operation to published specifications.

Typical power values are helpful for estimating average battery life or total cost of ownership. Typical values account for variations in process and are not based on real measurements of individual devices — they are not guaranteed values.

Instances can arise where the typical power reported may be larger than the maximum power. This aberration is a consequence of the modeling methods used, and is not indicative of an error.

Errors and Warnings

Error and warning fields display error and warning messages alerting you to problems with the information entered into this or another related worksheet. If there are error messages in a worksheet, the thermal power value displayed in the Main and Report worksheets corresponding to this worksheet is highlighted in red to indicate an error message. For accurate power estimates, you should resolve all error messages.