Current variations measurements for the estimation of software-related power consumption

A current measurement configuration for the estimation of the power consumption of low-power processing systems is presented in this work. The problem addressed is to measure the current variations of digital circuits (and especially of embedded processing circuits) and try to identify from these measurements the energy consumption variations associated with certain tasks performed by the system software. Accurate monitoring of the instantaneous variations of the power supply current may provide the appropriate information for the 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, is expected to provide clear information of the power behavior of single-chip processing systems.