The total power dissipation in a switched-capacitor circuit can be expresse
d as the sum of two terms: the static power absorbed by the operational amp
lifiers and the switching power, i.e., the power dissipated in charging and
discharging the capacitors. It is shown that, in general, the switching po
wer depends on the order in which the switches connected to the same clock
phase are closed. In practice, it is impossible to know this order with abs
olute certainty. As a consequence, a realistic estimate of the power dissip
ation can only be given as a range of possible values. It is shown that upp
er and lower bounds on the power dissipation can be computed by solving a s
ingle-source shortest paths problem on a directed graph. Numerical results
obtained on a number of switched-capacitor circuits indicate that, if low-p
ower operational amplifiers are used, the switching power can be a signific
ant fraction of the circuit's overall power dissipation.