To ensure a successful board design, you must consider all of the critical components related to power estimation, thermal design, power delivery, and decoupling and use the correct starting point for each. Board design changes or respins are extremely costly from both a time-to-market (TTM) as well as non-recurring engineer (NRE) costs. Xilinx recommends the methodology shown in the following figure and covered in this section to ensure that the board design uses the correct inputs to yield the best outcome.
Figure 1. Power and Thermal Methodology