MAX® 10 FPGA Design Guidelines

ID 683196
Date 5/15/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

1.5.1.7. Use the Early Power Estimator (EPE) to estimate power supplies and cooling solution

FPGA power consumption depends on logic design and is challenging to estimate during early board specification and layout. However, it is an important design consideration and must be estimated accurately to develop an appropriate power budget to design the power supplies, voltage regulators, decoupling capacitors, heat sink, and cooling system.

Use the EPE spreadsheet to estimate power, current, and device junction temperature before you have a complete design. The EPE calculates the estimated information based on device information, planned device resources, operating frequency, toggle rates, ambient temperature, heat sinks information, air flow, board thermal model, and other environmental considerations.

  • If you have an existing or partially-completed and compiled design—use the Generate Early Power Estimator File command in the Quartus® Prime software to provide input to the EPE spreadsheet.
  • If you do not have an existing design—estimate manually the number of device resources used in your design and input into the EPE spreadsheet. If the device resources information changes during or after the design phase, your power estimation results will be less accurate.