Various studies have shown that a significant amount of engineering time and effort for a project is typically spent on debug. For a low-power design and verification, these debug challenges are further complicated as a result of the sophisticated power management architectures and techniques that are used. Moreover the traditional debug technology and methods focus on issues found in a design working in always-on mode and fails to address the new and complex power-related issues thereby consuming more engineering time. In this paper, we will provide an in-depth analysis of various debug challenges and problems faced in low-power design and verification. By taking relevant examples we will demonstrate how these issues can be either avoided or solved. We will also highlight some of the common pitfalls that low-power designers can avoid which otherwise can lead to complex low-power issues that are difficult to debug at later stages of the design cycle.
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