In the first article, we gave an overview of Hailo’s power measurement solution.Series: Edge AI Power BenchmarkingIn this second article, we attempt to reproduce the power measurements with an alternate strategy.The motivation is to determine a reliable power measurement solution, that we can apply to M.2 AI accelerators from other vendors, which do not have on-board power measurement functionality.Power Measurement solutionsThere are several companies offering power measurement solutions, at different price ranges.Most use the same technique as Hailo : measuring the voltage/current drop across a shunt resistor. In order to add this circuit into existing systems, the solutions offer adapters with power insertion capabilities.QuarchThe Quarch solution is based on a Power Analysis Module (PAM), which connects to various fixtures for PCIe and/or M.2.In addition to power measurement, this solution comes with additional features, such as power generation, and fault injection. All this comes at a premium:
This solution was out of my budget, but it was relevant to mention just the same.ElmorLabsElmorLabs provides a solution that is compatible with standard ATX power supplies.They provide power measurement boards that are placed in line with the ATX24, EPS, and PCIE power cables, and also provide PCIe power insertion modules to measure the power on PCIe slots.Although the ElmorLabs does not address M.2 slots, their PCIe power insertion modules can be used with PCIe to M.2 adapters for our use case.
