Importing the Power Estimation Results from ISE or Vivado (*.xpe) - 2021.1 English

Xilinx Power Estimator User Guide (UG440)

Document ID
UG440
Release Date
2021-06-16
Version
2021.1 English

Use this option to further analyze your design by importing complete designs or IP blocks. The .xpe file you are importing can come from either the ISE Design Suite or the Vivado Design Suite.

ISE Design Suite
The .xpe file was produced by XPower Analyzer or by the -xpe option to the xpwr command. See the XPower Analyzer Help or the description of the -xpe option to the xpwr command line in the Command Line Tools User Guide (UG628) for details on how to generate this interoperability file.
Vivado Design Suite
The.xpe file was produced by the report power tool or by the -xpe option to the report_power Tcl command. See the Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Power Analysis and Optimization (UG907) for details on how to generate this interoperability file.

To determine device power supply requirements and estimate thermal dissipation throughout the design process, data exchange mechanisms are available between the different power estimation tools, Xilinx Power Estimator (XPE) and XPower Analyzer (XPA), which is in the ISE Design Suite. Details on the methodology and user flow are presented in the Power Methodology Guide (UG786). This data exchange mechanism is available for the Spartan-6, Virtex-6, Artix-7, Kintex-7, and Virtex-7 device families. Benefits and use model for this flow are presented in Importing Results from Vivado Power Analysis.

To import this data into the spreadsheet:

  1. In the Summary sheet of the XPE spreadsheet, click Import File.
  2. In the import dialog box, browse and select the .xpe file to import.
  3. (Optional. 7 series devices and Zynq-7000 SoC only) In the Design Data section of the dialog box, select whether you want the imported data to override any previously entered data in the spreadsheet or rather append to the existing results.
  4. (Optional. 7 series devices and Zynq-7000 SoC only) In the Advanced Options section of the dialog box, specify data to include during the import (Device Settings, Environment Settings, Voltage Settings, I/O Data, and Activity Rates).
Note: When you import an XPE file from the Vivado Design Suite, the Optimization field in the Implementation section of the Summary Tab is always set to Default for 7 series devices and to None for UltraScale devices. XPE does not apply any default optimization to imported data, because it assumes that the data from Vivado Report Power already accounts for power optimization from the Vivado Design Suite design flow.
Tip: When you import a .xpe file from the Vivado Design Suite, the imported data will be displayed hierarchically in the Logic sheet, BRAM sheet, and DSP sheet. In the following figure, the Name column in the Logic sheet contains a row for a parent module followed by rows with names indented, representing modules within the parent.
Figure 1. Hierarchical Display of Imported Data (7 Series Devices)