Power Consumption on DE1-SoC

[0x47]

Hello,

In you paper you are measuring the performance of PipeCNN using the DE1-SoC device (among others) and it shows a power consumption of 2.1 W in table 1 (page 282). I am trying to replicate this evaluation but my measurement results between 5.9 W and 6.7 W using the official 16.0 BSP. Even the idle board uses approximately 5.7 W (just after booting). During this test only USB-UART is connected to show the Linux terminal output.

Could you kindly let me know how you achieved this low power consumption using the DE1-SoC board? Did you change any BSP or Linux configuration?

Thank you very much.

[doonny]

Here you are

[0x47]

Thank you for your quick reply. Can you confirm that you booted the Terasic 16.0 BSP to run the PipeCNN run.exe file in the Ångström Linux on the SD-card?

This is the current of my board just after booting (the current will increase to 0.645 A after running PipeCNN):

12 V * 0.388 A = 4.656 W and 12 V * 0.645 A = 7.74 W

[Mario1112]

This forum post suggests the DE1-SoC running the Linux BSP with Ethernet cable (as in the first picture) draws 0.51 A * 12 V = 6.12 W.

fpga configured from HPS with SD with Linux Console with ethernet cable connected 0.51A

Even with only the FPGA running it uses 3.6 W

With fpga only are 12*0.3=3.6W, a lot of power.

I hope we can get a clarification because running at 2.1 W would be much better.

[0x47]

@doonny

Dear Prof. Wang,

We are trying to reproduce the results of your paper DOI 10.1109/FPT.2017.8280160 for the DE1-SoC FPGA platform. We are able to run the PipeCNN program on the internal Linux system with the 140 ms runtime given in the paper (AlexNet). However, we are unable to achieve the 2.1 W board power usage given in table 1 of the paper. Can you give any insight about whether there is any special configuration necessary to run the DE1-SoC board at 2.1 W using the 16.0 Terasic BSP? Thank you very much.

[doonny]

Hello, we are using BSP 16.0 from Terasic and also the linux kernel provided with the BSP. And make sure the arm processor is not over clocked.

A power meter like the following one shoud give you the correct result:

And a quick search will show that 2.0~3.0W is the ordinary power consumption for cyclone-V device

https://support.criticallink.com/redmine/projects/mityarm-5cs/wiki/Power_Supply_Requirements

I hope the information helps.

[doonny]

Also by my knowledge, the usb and jtag are also power consuming. Make sure doing the measurement without all the peripherals and unused chips/ LEDs on-board. Good Luck.

[doonny]

I am assuming this problem has been solved.