Power consumption has emerged as the number one challenge towards improving the performance of future computing systems. This book provides an overview of techniques in power modeling and characterization for three computing substrates: general-purpose processors, system-on-chip-based embedded systems, and field programmable gate arrays. It describes the basic principles that govern power consumption in digital circuits, and utilizes these principles to describe high-level power modeling techniques for designs of the three computing substrates.

Once a computing device is fabricated, direct measurements on the actual device reveal a great wealth of information about the device's power consumption under various operating conditions.

This monograph discusses characterization techniques that integrate infrared imaging with electric current measurements to generate runtime power maps. The power maps can be used to validate design-time power models and to calibrate computer-aided design tools. It also describes empirical power characterization techniques for software power analysis and for adaptive power-aware computing and concludes by outlining four promising future research areas.

This is an invaluable reference for anyone with an interest in power consumption and how it affects the performance of computing systems.