The significance of selecting the "ideal" FPGAs for a design is growing, with power consumption becoming a central concern. Effective power management is essential in most applications, and many standards now impose power limits on individual cards or entire systems. As a result, designers must address power issues early in the design process, often starting with the choice of FPGA.
Reducing an FPGA's power consumption simplifies board design by lowering supply voltages, streamlining power supply design, and reducing thermal management complexity. It also lowers the requirements for power distribution on the board. Low power consumption extends battery life and improves system reliability, as lower operating temperatures lead to longer-lasting components.
The power challenge has become more pronounced with each new generation of process technology. While transistor sizes continue to shrink according to Moore’s Law, this also leads to increased leakage current, which raises static power consumption—especially when the device is inactive. At the same time, higher performance demands faster clock speeds, increasing dynamic power usage. Both static and dynamic power consumption rise as FPGA capacity grows, with more transistors operating at higher speeds and generating more leakage.
Given these challenges, designers need a clear understanding of power and thermal management from the start. Simply adding a heat sink isn’t enough. Instead, minimizing the amount of logic used in the design becomes crucial.
To reduce power consumption, it's important to follow specific guidelines throughout the design process. Early awareness of these issues can yield the greatest benefits. Figure 1 outlines key design points, including FPGA selection and low-power design techniques.
[Image: Figure 1 - Reduced power consumption begins with device selection, tool support, and software optimization]
Xilinx 7 Series FPGAs are designed with a 28nm high-performance, low-power (HPL) process that delivers strong performance while significantly cutting power use. This helps avoid complex and costly static power management schemes. Although the 28HP process doesn't exceed other 7 Series FPGAs in performance, its static power consumption is less than half that of competing devices. As shown in Figure 2, 7 Series products consume about half the power of their 40nm predecessors.
[Image: Figure 2 - Xilinx 7 Series FPGAs consume only half the power of 40nm process devices]
Designers can opt for larger FPGAs during development and then switch to smaller ones in production, which not only cuts costs but also reduces overall power consumption. All 7 Series FPGAs share a unified architecture, making it easy to migrate between different devices within the series. For migration guidance, refer to the “7 Series User Guide†(UG429).
[Image: Table 1 - Static, Dynamic Power, and Performance Comparison]
Xilinx Stacked Silicon Interconnect (SSI) technology offers another advantage for larger systems. By stacking multiple chips with thousands of interconnections, SSI creates a single large device, significantly reducing both static and I/O interconnect power consumption. Compared to traditional multi-FPGA setups, SSI provides up to 100 times lower I/O power consumption, thanks to internal signal routing that eliminates off-chip signal driving.
Xilinx 7 Series FPGAs also offer extended voltage options. The -2L and -3L devices support an extended temperature range (0–100°C), with some capable of operating at 0.9V or 1.0V. Operating at 0.9V reduces static power by around 30%, though it may slightly impact performance. However, Xilinx screens these devices for tighter leakage and speed specifications, resulting in up to 55% less power under worst-case conditions.
By using a -2L device, users can further cut dynamic power, as dynamic power is proportional to VCCINT². A 10% reduction in VCCINT can lead to a 20% drop in power consumption.
Xilinx provides a range of tools to help estimate and analyze power consumption at every stage of the design process. Figure 3 shows the available tools for power estimation and analysis.
[Image: Figure 3 - Xilinx provides power estimation and analysis tools for each phase of the design process]
To minimize power usage, designers should prioritize using dedicated hardware modules instead of implementing the same functions in CLBs. The XPower Estimator (XPE) allows early power estimation before initial design, helping with architectural evaluation and device selection. PlanAhead software estimates power at the RTL level, offering more detailed insights than XPE but less accuracy than post-layout analysis. The XPower Analyzer (XPA) provides comprehensive power and thermal analysis after place-and-route, allowing users to identify and optimize the most power-hungry components in their design.
Tier 1 Solar Panel
Chinese Tier 1 brand Solar Panel (Longi, Jinko, Trina, Canadian, Ja etc.)
This type of product is mainly Tier 1 solar module product in China, include Longi solar panel. Jinko solar panel, Canadian Solar panel, ja solar panel etc.all of which are among the top 10 world-renowned brands. The original A grade product is mainly mono crystalline and half cut cell solar modules, with a power range of 400watts to a maximum of 700watts.quality warranty is 25 years.
A grade, this type of film is characterized by a neat and uniform appearance, printed electrode grid lines, no broken grid, no surface stains, no leakage, no aluminum package, no hidden cracks, no scratches, no black core, no reverse current, stable electrical performance, and high conversion efficiency
Using solar cell testing equipment to measure and screen, the conversion efficiency, filling factor, and appearance that meet certain standards are first level. Generally, the conversion efficiency, filling factor, and appearance of first level are better than those of level B
The level of solar panels can be divided into first level, second level, third level, and fourth level, and the first level components can be divided into first level+and first level - two levels. The second level is also the same, and the cost difference between different levels of solar panels is also very large.
Chinese tier 1 brand solar panel
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TIER 1 brand include
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Longi, Jinko, Trina, JA, Canadian, znshine, etc.
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quality warranty
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25 years
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grade
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original A grade (each solar panel can be checked on official website with barcode)
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power range
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400watt to max 700watt
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Tier 1 Solar Panel,Mono Solar Panel N Type,Solar Panels Bifacial 555 Watt,Solar Panel Mono Topcon Cell
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