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Power-Aware Floorplanning for Sub-mW Designs

Voltage islands, retention strategies, and why your floorplan IS your power plan.

For always-on IoT silicon, leakage matters more than dynamic power. Your floorplan locks in the voltage-domain topology — change it later and you redo everything.

Voltage Islands

Group always-on logic together. Isolate switchable domains with header/footer cells and level shifters at boundaries.

Retention Strategy

Save state across power-down with retention flops. Cost: 2-4× area per flop. Use sparingly.

UPF Discipline

Write the UPF before the floorplan. Then the floorplan implements UPF — not the other way around.

Low PowerFloorplanUPF