March 1, 2007 -- If one looks at today's design flow, there is currently no way to incorporate advanced low-power design intentions without having to create several instances of ad-hoc files describing special cells (e.g. isolation cells) and power-supply specifications. Without a single-file representation that could be integrated end to end in the design flow, designers would have to create keep managing unique sets of files to cover the needs of design, verification and implementation.
Currently, several standardization efforts are at work, and it appears that the representative groups see value in arriving at a converged solution. One of these groups, representing the Common Power Format (CPF), is used here as a model to illustrate the value of a standard.
By Toshiyuki Saito. (Saito is with NEC Electronics Corp.)
This brief introduction has been excerpted from the original copyrighted article.
