Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G01—MEASURING; TESTING
  • G01R—MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES
  • G01R21/00—Arrangements for measuring electric power or power factor
  • G01R21/06—Arrangements for measuring electric power or power factor by measuring current and voltage
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G01—MEASURING; TESTING
  • G01R—MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES
  • G01R19/00—Arrangements for measuring currents or voltages or for indicating presence or sign thereof
  • G01R19/0092—Arrangements for measuring currents or voltages or for indicating presence or sign thereof measuring current only
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G01—MEASURING; TESTING
  • G01R—MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES
  • G01R21/00—Arrangements for measuring electric power or power factor
  • G01R21/133—Arrangements for measuring electric power or power factor by using digital technique
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G01—MEASURING; TESTING
  • G01R—MEASURING ELECTRIC VARIABLES; MEASURING MAGNETIC VARIABLES
  • G01R35/00—Testing or calibrating of apparatus covered by the other groups of this subclass
  • G01R35/005—Calibrating; Standards or reference devices, e.g. voltage or resistance standards, "golden" references
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F1/00—Details not covered by groups G06F3/00 - G06F13/00 and G06F21/00
  • G06F1/26—Power supply means, e.g. regulation thereof
  • G06F1/28—Supervision thereof, e.g. detecting power-supply failure by out of limits supervision
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
  • G06F11/30—Monitoring

Definitions

• the present invention relates to a power measurement system using an embedded trace macrocell (ETM) interface, and more particularly, to a power measurement system for measuring power consumption or a power consumption pattern of application software executed by target hardware such as an embedded system.
• ETM embedded trace macrocell
• An embedded system is an electronic control system embedded in an electronic device to perform a specific function.
• the embedded system is constructed in a combination of hardware and software for performing the specific function.
• the embedded system there are televisions, refrigerators, mobile phones, set-top boxes, and digital televisions (DTV).
• DTV digital televisions
• a general-purpose computer system such as a personal computer performing many different functions is not treated as an embedded system.
• the host computer is a computer used for developing the embedded system.
• the target hardware device is a to-be-developed hardware device in which the embedded system is to be installed.
• the host computer is provided with a development tool, a target simulator for temporarily emulating a developed application program, and a target server which is connected to the target hardware to upload a developed application program on the target hardware or perform remote debugging through a debug agent reacting to the target hardware.
• An ETM interface as a logic block is included in the hardware.
• the ETM interface is connected to a processor to broadcast address, data, and status signals of the processor. More specifically, the ETM interface broadcasts branch addresses, data, and status information through a trace port in a compressed protocol.
• the ETM interface includes resources used to trigger outputs of the trace port and perform filtering.
• JTAG joint test action group
• the present invention provides a power measurement system for measuring power consumption of executing a specific function or process by using an embedded trace macrocell (ETM) interface.
• ETM embedded trace macrocell
• a power measurement system for measuring power consumption of a to-be-measured device included in target hardware, the system including: a data storage unit; a current detector measuring a current applied to the to-be-measured device of the target hardware; a current data logger receiving data of current from the current detector and storing the data of current along with synchronization information in the data storage unit; an embedded trace macrocell (ETM) debugger connecting to an ETM interface of the target hardware to receive central processing unit (CPU) on the target hardware; a CPU information logger periodically receiving the information of CPU from the ETM debugger and storing the information of CPU along with the synchronization information in the data storage unit; and a power consumption analyzer receiving the information of CPU and the data of current along with the synchronization information from the data storage unit and detecting power consumption of the to-be-measured device by using the information of CPU and the data of current.
• ETM embedded trace macrocell
• the system may further include a clock correction circuit which synchronizes an internal clock with a clock of the target hardware and provides the internal clock to the current detector and the ETM debugger to synchronize the data of current detected by the current detector with the information of CPU collected by the ETM debugger so as to measure power consumption and a power consumption pattern of a function or process executed by the target hardware.
• a clock correction circuit which synchronizes an internal clock with a clock of the target hardware and provides the internal clock to the current detector and the ETM debugger to synchronize the data of current detected by the current detector with the information of CPU collected by the ETM debugger so as to measure power consumption and a power consumption pattern of a function or process executed by the target hardware.
• the information of CPU collected by the power measurement system may be information stored in a program counter.
• the power consumption analyzer may be provided with a symbol table for application software executed by the CPU of the target hardware in advance, find out a function or process executed by the CPU of the target hardware by matching program counter information in the collected information of CPU with the symbol table, read data of current in the to-be-measured device when the function or process is executed from the data storage, and analyze power consumption of the function or process by using the read data of current.
• system may further include a display unit, and the power consumption or the power consumption pattern detected by the power consumption analyzer may be displayed on the display unit.
• FIG. 3a is a graph illustrating power consumption patterns of hard disk drivers (HDDs) of portable multimedia players (PMP) manufactured by four different manufacturing companies.
• the power consumption patterns are measured for five minutes by using the power measurement system according to the present invention.
• a predetermined section (a region 'a' in FIG. 3a) is selected from the power consumption patterns displayed on a display unit, data (for example, a function name, an execution time, and the number of executions) of the function executed in the predetermined section is displayed as illustrated in FIG. 3b, or a "call tree" is displayed as illustrated in FIG. 3c.
• a source code of the function is displayed.
• a section having much power consuming can be easily checked through the graph, and data of the functions in the predetermined section can be easily checked.
• the source code is displayed by clicking the function name, the source code of the function having much power consumption can be simply modified.
• power consumption of a mobile phone in a standby mode can be measured by using the power measurement system according to the present invention. More specifically, power consumption of each device of the mobile phone can be measured in a hardware manner, and power consumption of each function executed in the mobile phone can also be measured in a software manner. Accordingly, the power measurement system according to the present invention can be used for standby power debugging in an embedded system such as a mobile phone.
• the power measurement system according to the present invention can be used for power consumption debugging as a network is used.
• FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a configuration of a power measurement system using an embedded trace macrocell (ETM) interface according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• ETM embedded trace macrocell
• FIG. 2 is a flowchart for sequentially explaining operations of a power consumption analyzer of a power measurement system according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• FIG. 3 is view illustrating a screen of a display unit included in a power measurement system for displaying power consumption patterns according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• a to-be-measured device of which power consumption is to be measured by using the power measurement system according to the present invention is one of devices of target hardware.
• the target hardware includes a number of devices including the to-be-measured device and a central processing unit (CPU) . Therefore, the power measurement system according to the present invention can measure power consumption and/or a power consumption pattern of the to-be-measured device by using information of CPU of the target hardware during execution of specific software or a specific process.
• FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a power measurement system 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention.
• the power measurement system 10 includes a current detector 100, a current data logger 110, a clock correction circuit 120, an ETM debugger 130, a CPU information logger 50, a power consumption analyzer 160, a display unit 170, and a data storage unit 180.
• Target hardware 20 includes a CPU 200, a clock generator 210, an ETM interface 220, and a measurement terminal unit 230 connected to power supply terminals of a number of devices including the to-be-measured device.
• the target hardware 20 is a general embedded system. Since a configuration of the general embedded system is well known to the ordinarily skilled in the art, detailed description thereof will be omitted. Since constant voltages are applied to the devices of the target hardware 20 through a regulator, the power measurement system according to the present invention can store the voltage values of the devices in advance.
• the clock correction circuit 120 receives a clock from the clock generator 210 of the target hardware 20, corrects an internal clock to synchronize the internal clock with the received clock of the target hardware, and provides the synchronized clock to the current detector 100 and the ETM debugger 130. Due to the clock correction circuit 120, data of current detected by the current detector 100 and information of CPU of the target hardware collected by the ETM debugger 130 can be synchronized.
• the current detector 100 measures current applied to the to-be- measured device of the target hardware according to the clock provided by the clock correction circuit 120.
• the current detector 100 may be a digital multimeter that can measure current or voltage at arbitrary terminals.
• the current detector 100 is electrically connected to the measurement terminal unit 230 of the target hardware 20 to measure the current of the to- be-measured device.
• the current data logger 110 receives the data of current of the to-be-measured device from the current detector 100 and stores the data of current together with synchronization information in the data storage unit 180.
• the synchronization information is generated according to the internal clock provided by the clock correction circuit 120.
• the ETM debugger 130 is connected to the ETM interface to receive the information of CPU of the target hardware according to the clock provided by the clock correction circuit 120.
• the ETM debugger 130 is connected to the CPU information logger 150 to transmit the received the information of CPU to the CPU information logger 150.
• the ETM debugger 130 can read out the information of CPU of the target hardware through the ETM interface of the target hardware in real-time.
• the information of CPU scanned by the ETM debugger 130 through the ETM interface of the target hardware is information on a program counter (PC) .
• the PC is sometimes referred to as an "instruction address register.” That is, the PC is a register having an address of a next-executed instruction. A value indicating the address of the next-executed instruction in the register PC is automatically incremented after each instruction is output.
• the register PC is not operated in a general manner unlike other types of registers.
• the register PC provides specific instructions that can change controllability by entering a new value such as JUMP, CALL, and RTS into the PC. Therefore, by scanning the information of the register PC, an address of the next-executed function instruction can be checked.
• the CPU information logger 150 is connected to the ETM debugger 130 via a universal serial bus (USB) interface to receive the information of CPU of the target hardware from the ETM debugger 130.
• the CPU information logger 150 is connected to the power consumption analyzer 160 to store the received information of CPU together with synchronization information in the data storage unit 180. As described above, the synchronization information is generated according to the internal clock.
• the power consumption analyzer 160 receives the data of current and the information of CPU together with the synchronization information from the data storage unit 180 and measures power consumption by using the received data and information.
• the power consumption analyzer 160 that receives the data of current and the information of CPU finally measures power consumption or a power consumption pattern by using the stored voltage value and the data of current applied to the to-be-measured device of the target hardware.
• the power consumption pattern is displayed as a graph illustrating power consumption measured in a predetermined section for a predetermined time. In the graph, time-varying power consumption for a predetermined time is illustrated.
• the power consumption analyzer 160 analyzes a changing behavior and amount of the current value of the to-be-measured device measured by the current detector 100 according to the functions or the processes executed by the CPU of the target hardware. In addition, the power consumption analyzer 160 calculates the execution time of the function or the process executed by the CPU of the target hardware and the number of executions thereof by using the information of CPU. In addition, the power consumption analyzer 160 calculates power consumption for the functions or processes by using the data of current measured during execution of the functions or processes. The power consumption analyzer 160 provides results of measurement of the power consumption or the power consumption pattern of the specific device during execution of the specific functions or processes as numerical values or a graph to a user on the display unit 170.
• a programmer can modify a code of the software by using the analysis results of the power consumption analyzer 160, so that the programmer can write software performing the same function with low power consumption.
• the embedded system also operates with the software with low power consumption, so that battery usage time of the embedded system can be increased.
• a symbol table for a corresponding application program is stored in advance (operation 200) .
• the symbol table is a table generated during compiling of the software.
• the symbol table denotes a memory map of a memory which a compiler calculates for calling a function, a method, or the like.
• the symbol table may store function names, address values and error status, and a data region of the memory, types or lengths of the instructions, and the like.
• an address of the next-executed instruction is stored in the aforementioned PC.
• the function or process executed by the CPU of the target hardware is checked (operation 210) . More specifically, by reading out the address of the instruction from the PC and matching the read-out address with the symbol table, the function corresponding to the address can be checked.
• the current data logger reads out the current of the to-be- measured device obtained during execution of the function or process (operation 220) .
• power consumption of the function or process is checked by using the read-out current value (operation 230).
• the execution time of the function or process is detected by using the information of CPU that is periodically collected (operation 240) .
• the number of calls of the function or process may be detected by using the information of CPU that is periodically collected (operation 250).
• the power consumption and/or the power consumption pattern of the function or process are detected by using the detected execution time and the detected number of calls (operation 260) .
• the detected power consumption and/or the detected power consumption pattern are displayed on the display unit (operation 270) .
• a power measurement system according to the present invention can be widely used for development of an embedded system.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Quality & Reliability (AREA)
• Power Engineering (AREA)
• Debugging And Monitoring (AREA)
• Power Sources (AREA)

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Cited By (4)

Citations (5)

• 2007
  • 2007-05-30 KR KR1020070052592A patent/KR100869953B1/ko not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2007-08-20 WO PCT/KR2007/003964 patent/WO2008146984A1/en active Application Filing

Patent Citations (5)

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