Power Analysis Using Vivado Simulator - 2022.2 English

Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Logic Simulation (UG900)

Document ID
UG900
Release Date
2022-10-19
Version
2022.2 English

The Switching Activity Interchange Format (SAIF) is an ASCII report that assists in extracting and storing switching activity information generated by simulator tools. This switching activity can be back-annotated into the Xilinx® power analysis and optimization tools for the power measurements and estimations.

Switching Activity Interchange Format (SAIF) dumping is optimized for Xilinx power tools and for use by the report_power Tcl command. The Vivado simulator writes the following HDL types to the SAIF file. Refer to this link in the Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Power Analysis and Optimization (UG907) for additional information.

  • Verilog:
    • Input, Output, and Inout ports
    • Internal wire declarations
  • VHDL:
    • Input, Output, and Inout ports of type std_logic, std_ulogic, and bit (scalar, vector, and arrays).
    Note: A VHDL netlist is not generated in the Vivado Design Suite for timing simulations; consequently, the VHDL sources are for RTL-level code only, and not for netlist simulation.

For RTL-level simulations, only block-level ports are generated and not the internal signals.

For information about power analysis using third-party simulation tools, see Dumping SAIF for Power Analysis, and Dumping SAIF in VCS in Simulating with Third-Party Simulators.