For SoC product developers, worrying about the impact of memory power consumption is often way down the list of care-abouts. Indeed, it is enough of a challenge just juggling the demands of meeting feature, performance, area and system power goals. Typically, as memory IP is often sourced from the foundry or one of the big IP vendors then the power that they quote is the power you get; end of discussion. However, given that on-chip memory can now account for more than 50 percent of chip area and a significant chunk of the overall power budget too, then maybe it is time this critical element got bumped up that list.

Full article on Electronics for Engineers