Novel low leakage and energy efficient dual-pullup/dual-pulldown repeater

Transistor threshold voltage (V_t) scaling causes higher power consumption by increasing the subthreshold leakage and short-circuit currents in CMOS circuits. Leakage currents are significant contributors to the overall power consumption of digital systems-on-chip as threshold voltage, channel length, and gate oxide thickness are reduced with CMOS technology scaling. A new dual-pullup/dual-pulldown (DPU/DPD) repeater is proposed in this paper for higher energy efficiency in low-voltage and low-frequency applications. The standby mode leakage power consumption is reduced by 59.11% with the proposed clock tree as compared to the conventional 3 level H-tree operating with a power supply voltage of 1.0V in a 45 nm CMOS technology. The short-circuit currents are suppressed by selectively employing high-V_t transistors in the repeaters. The clock network with the proposed buffer lowers the active mode energy consumption by up to 24.91% as compared to a conventional clock tree under equal silicon area constraint. Post layout results reveal that the statistical spread of clock skew in the DPU/DPD H-tree is also 20.60% lower than the conventional H-tree network.     

Low-power clock distribution using multiple voltages and reduced swings

Clock networks account for a significant fraction of the power dissipation of a chip and are critical to performance. This paper presents theory and algorithms for building a low-power clock tree by distributing the clock signal at a lower voltage and translating it to a higher voltage at the utilization points. Two low-power schemes are used: reduced swing and multiple-supply voltages. We analyze the issue of tree construction and present conclusions relevant to various technology generations according to the NTRS. Our experimental results show that power savings of an average of 45% are possible for a 0.25 /spl mu/m technology using multiple supply voltages, and about 32% using a single external supply voltage.     

Half-swing clocking scheme for 75% power saving in clockingcircuitry

We propose a half-swing clocking scheme that allows us to reduce power consumption of clocking circuitry by as much as 75%, because all the clock signal swings are reduced to half of the LSI supply voltage. The new clocking scheme causes quite small speed degradation, because the random logic circuits in the critical path are still supplied by the full supply voltage. We also propose a clock driver which supplies half-swing clock and generates half V_DD by itself. We confirmed that the half-swing clocking scheme provided 67% power saving in a test chip fabricated with 0.5 μm CMOS technology, ideally 75%, in the clocking circuitry, and that the degradation in speed was only 0.5 ns by circuit simulation. The key to the proposed clocking scheme is the concept that the voltage swing is reduced only for clocking circuitry, but is retained for all other circuits in the chip. This results in significant power reduction with minimal speed degradation     

高速多级时钟网布线

提出了一种新的加载缓冲器的时钟布线算法 .该算法根据时钟汇点的分布情况 ,在时钟布线之前对缓冲器进行预先布局 ,并将时钟树的拓扑生成及实体嵌入和层次式的缓冲器布局方法有机结合起来 ,使布线情况充分反映缓冲器对时钟网结构的影响 .实验证明 ,与将缓冲器插入和布局作为后处理步骤相比 ,缓冲器预先插入和布局在很大程度上避免了布线的盲目性 ,并能更加有效地实现各时钟子树的延迟和负载的平衡 .     

Exponentially tapered H-tree clock distribution networks

Exponentially tapered interconnect can reduce the dynamic power dissipation of clock distribution networks. A criterion for sizing H-tree clock networks is proposed. The technique reduces the power dissipated for an example clock network by up to 15% while preserving the signal transition times and propagation delays. Furthermore, the inductive behavior of the interconnects is reduced, decreasing the inductive noise. Exponentially tapered interconnects decrease by approximately 35% the difference between the overshoots in the signal at the input of a tree. As compared to a uniform tree with the same area overhead, overshoots in the signal waveform at the source of the tree are reduced by 40%.     

超深亚微米物理设计中天线效应的消除

分析了超深亚微米物理设计中天线效应的产生机理以及基于超深亚微米工艺阐述了计算天线比率的具体方法。同时,根据天线效应的产生机理并结合时钟树综合提出了消除天线效应的新方法。此方法通过设置合理的约束进行时钟树综合,使得天线效应对时钟延时和时钟偏斜的影响降到最低,从而对芯片时序的影响降到最低。最后结合一款芯片的物理设计,该设计采用台积电(TSMC)65 nm低功耗(LP)工艺,在布局布线中运用所述的方法进行时钟树综合并且使得时钟网络布线具有最大的优先权。此方法有效地消除了设计中存在的天线效应,并且使得天线效应对时钟树的影响降到最低以及对时序的影响降到最小。     

Extensible supply voltage control mechanism for low power array structure design

A novel supply voltage switching control mechanism, called D-logic, for reducing power dissipation of array structures is presented. With this D-logic mechanism, the supply voltage levels are successively activated by external clock signal in the direction of signal propagation, which eliminates power dissipated by the glitches. The mechanism is easily incorporated with minimal circuit change in the existing array structure, and the speed of the array structure can be maintained. We have reduced the energy consumption of the multipliers and CORDICs as much as 50% with the proposed D-logic circuitry.     

A low-power digital matched filter for direct-sequencespread-spectrum signal acquisition

This paper presents a low-power 128-tap dual-channel direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) digital matched-filter chip. Design techniques used to reduce the power consumption of the system include latch-based register file filter structure, a high-rate compression scheme, optimized compressor cells, and semicustom layout design. To further reduce the power consumption and the hardware requirement of the clock tree, a double-edge-triggered clocking scheme is adopted. The proposed chip is fabricated using a 0.8-μm standard CMOS process. As the experimental results of the chip indicate, the matched filter can operate at 50 MHz and dissipates 184 mW at 5-V supply voltage. The supply voltage can be scaled down to 2 V for lower speed applications. As a consequence, the proposed design has low power consumption and can be used for code acquisition of DSSS signals in portable systems     

A Test Time Theorem and its Applications

Power dissipated during test is a constraint when it comes to test time reduction. In this work, we show that for a given test the minimum test application time is achieved when the total energy is dissipated evenly at the rate of the maximum allowable power for the device under test. This result, the test time theorem, leads to two alternatives for reducing test time. In the first alternative, we scale the supply voltage down to reduce power, which in turn allows us to increase the clock frequency, of course within the limit imposed by the critical path. Thus, optimum voltage and frequency can be found to minimize the test time of a fixed frequency synchronous test. In the other alternative, which also benefits from the reduced voltage, the clock period is dynamically varied so that each cycle dissipates the maximum allowable power. This test, termed aperiodic clock test, according to the theorem achieves the lower bound on test time. An illustrative example of an ISCAS’89 benchmark circuit shows a test time reductionof 71 %.     

Pattern-matching-based X-architecture zero-skew clock tree construction with X-Flip technique and via delay consideration

As IC fabrication technologies get into nanometer era, clock routing gradually dominates chip performance indicated by delay, cost, and power consumption. X-architecture can be applied for routing metal wires in diagonal and rectilinear directions to overcome the above challenges due to wirelength reduction. In this paper, we present a clock routing algorithm, called PMXF, to construct an X-architecture zero-skew clock tree with minimum delay. An X-pattern library is defined for simplifying the merging procedure of the DME approach, an X-Flip technique is proposed for reducing the wirelength between the paired points, and a wire sizing technique is applied for achieving zero skew. In terms of clock delay, wirelength, power consumption, and via count listed in the experimental results on benchmarks, the proposed PMXF algorithm can respectively achieve more reductions compared with other previous X-architecture clock routing algorithms.     

A low-swing clock double-edge triggered flip-flop

A low-swing clock double-edge triggered flip-flop (LSDFF) is developed to reduce power consumption significantly compared to conventional flip-flops. The LSDFF avoids unnecessary internal node transitions to reduce power consumption. In addition, power consumption in the clock tree is reduced because LSDFF uses a double-edge triggered operation as well as a low-swing clock. To prevent performance degradation of the LSDFF due to low-swing clock, low-V_t transistors are used for the clocked transistors without significant leakage current problems. The power saving in flip-flop operation is estimated to be 28.6% to 49.6% with additional 78% power saving in the clock network     

电子产品面板控制芯片的后端设计

采用SOC Encounter基于华虹NEC 0.35 μm CZ6H 1P3AL工艺,进行电子产品面板控制芯片的版图设计。在版图设计过程中,采用时序驱动布局,同时限制布局密度达到良好的效果,利用时钟树自动综合和手动修改相结合,使时钟偏移尽可能少。并对在电源网络连接、布线时遇到的问题,提出解决办法。最终实现该芯片的物理设计,结果满足时序和制造工艺要求,并达到以下指标:工作频率12 MHz,芯片面积1.089 mm²,功耗为2.715 2 mW。     

Temperature-adaptive voltage scaling for enhanced energy efficiency in subthreshold memory arrays

Static random access memory (SRAM) circuits optimized for minimum energy consumption typically operate in the subthreshold regime with ultra low-power-supply voltages. Both the read and the write propagation delays of a subthreshold memory circuit are significantly reduced with an increase in the die temperature. The excessive timing slack observed in the clock period of constant-frequency subthreshold memory circuits at elevated temperatures provides new opportunities to lower the active-mode energy consumption. Temperature-adaptive dynamic supply voltage tuning (TA-DVS) technique is proposed in this paper to reduce the high-temperature energy consumption of ultra low-voltage subthreshold SRAM arrays. Results indicate that the energy consumption can be lowered by up to 32.8% by dynamically scaling the supply voltage at elevated temperatures. The impact of the temperature-adaptive dynamic supply voltage scaling technique on the data stability of the subthreshold SRAM bit-cells is presented. The effectiveness of the TA-DVS technique under process parameter and supply voltage variations is evaluated. An alternative technique based on temperature-adaptive reverse body bias (TA-RBB) to exponentially reduce the subthreshold leakage currents at elevated temperatures is also investigated. The active-mode energy consumption characteristics of the two temperature-adaptive voltage tuning techniques are compared.     

Stochastic Power/Ground Supply Voltage Prediction and Optimization Via Analytical Placement

Increasingly significant power/ground (P/G) supply voltage degradation in nanometer VLSI designs leads to system performance degradation and even malfunction, which requires stochastic analysis and optimization techniques. We represent the supply voltage degradation at a P/G node as a function of the supply currents and the effective resistance of a P/G supply network and propose an efficient stochastic system-level P/G supply voltage prediction method, which computes P/G supply network effective resistances in a random walk process. We further propose to reduce P/G supply voltage degradation via placement of supply current sources, and integrate P/G supply voltage degradation reduction with conventional placement objectives in an analytical placement framework. Our experimental results show that the proposed stochastic P/G supply network prediction method achieves 10x-100x speedup compared with traditional SPICE simulation, and the proposed P/G supply voltage degradation aware placement achieves an average of 20.9% (11.7%) reduction on maximum (average) supply voltage degradation with only 4.3% wirelength increase.     

Low-power level converting flip-flop with a conditional clock technique in dual supply systems

Clustered voltage scaling (CVS) is an effective way to reduce power consumption in digital integrated circuits. Level-converting flip-flops are the critical elements in the CVS scheme. In this paper a single edge implicit pulse-triggered level-converting flip-flop with a conditional clock technique (CC-LCFF) is proposed and proved to be suitable for use in low-power non-critical paths with Dual-VDD. CC-LCFF conditionally blocks the clock signal when the input data does not make any transition, so the redundant transitions of internal nodes are eliminated and the total power consumption is reduced. Based on the SMIC 65 nm technology, the post-layout simulation results show that the proposed CC-LCFF shows an improvement of 69.41–72.40% in power consumption and 23.36–47.73% in power-delay product (PDP) as compared with its counterparts.     

Frequency presetting and phase error detection technique for fast-locking phase-locked loop

A frequency presetting and phase error detection technique for a fast-locking phase-locked loop (PLL) is presented. The frequency difference between the reference clock and the divided VCO output clock is detected by the frequency presetting circuit. The frequency-presetting scheme allows the control voltage to be brought close to the target voltage with small initial frequency error. The phase error detector further reduced the locking speed by increasing the bandwidth of PLL through altering the supply current in the charge pump according to the phase error between the reference clock and the divided VCO output clock. The settling time of PLL can be significantly reduced afterwards. The settling time is reduced by 86%. The proposed PLL has been implemented in a 0.35 μm CMOS process, with a supply voltage of 3.3 V.     

Embedded power supply for low-power DSP

The use of dynamically adjustable power supplies as a method to lower power dissipation in DSP is analyzed. Power can be reduced substantially without sacrificing performance in fixed-throughput applications by slowing the clock and lowering supply voltage instead of idling when computational workload varies. This can yield a typical power savings of 30-50%. If latency can be tolerated, buffering data and averaging processing rate can yield power reductions of an order of magnitude in some applications. Continuous variation of the supply voltage can be approximated by very crude quantization and dithering: a four-level controller is sufficient to get within a few percent of the optimal power savings. Significant savings are possible only if the voltage can be changed on the same time scale as the variations in workload. A chip has been fabricated and tested to verify the closed-loop functionality of a variable voltage system. The controller takes only 0.4 mm² and draws a maximum of 1 mW at 2 V with a 40 MHz clock. The control framework developed is applicable to generic DSP applications     

一种非零偏差时钟网布线算法

特定的非零偏差时钟网比零偏差时钟网更具优势,它有助于提高时钟频率、降低偏差的敏感度.文章提出了一种新的非零偏差时钟树布线算法,它结合时钟节点延时和时钟汇点位置,得到一个最大节点延时次序合并策略,使时钟树连线长度变小.实验结果显示,这种算法与典型的最邻近选择合并策略相比较,可以减少20%～30%的总连线长度.     

Temperature-adaptive voltage tuning for enhanced energy efficiency in ultra-low-voltage circuits

Circuits optimized for minimum energy consumption operate typically in the subthreshold regime with ultra-low power-supply voltages. Speed of a subthreshold logic circuit is enhanced with an increase in the die temperature. The excessive timing slack observed in the clock period of subthreshold logic circuits at elevated temperatures provides opportunities to lower the active-mode energy consumption. A temperature-adaptive dynamic-supply voltage-tuning technique is proposed in this paper to reduce the high-temperature energy consumption without degrading the clock frequency in ultra-low-voltage subthreshold logic circuits. Results indicate that the energy consumption can be lowered by up to 40% by dynamically scaling the supply voltage at elevated temperatures. An alternative technique based on temperature-adaptive reverse body bias to exponentially reduce the subthreshold leakage currents at elevated temperatures is also investigated. The active-mode energy consumption with two temperature-adaptive voltage-tuning techniques is compared. The impact of the process parameter and supply voltage variations on the proposed temperature-adaptive voltage scaling techniques is evaluated.     

Stochastic Physical Synthesis Considering Prerouting Interconnect Uncertainty and Process Variation for FPGAs

Process variation and prerouting interconnect delay uncertainty affect timing and power for modern VLSI designs in nanometer technologies. This paper presents the first in-depth study on stochastic physical synthesis algorithms leveraging statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) with process variation and prerouting interconnect delay uncertainty for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Evaluated by SSTA using the placed and routed circuits, the stochastic clustering, placement, and routing reduce the mean delay by 5.0%, 4.0%, and 1.4%, respectively, and reduce the standard deviation of delay by 6.4%, 6.1%, and 1.4%, respectively for MCNC designs. The majority of improvements come from modeling interconnect delay uncertainty for clustering and from considering process variation for placement, while routing has less improvement on delay. In addition, we study the interaction between each individual design stage. When applying all stochastic algorithms concurrently, the mean delay and standard deviation are reduced by 6.2% and 7.5%, respectively. On the other hand, stochastic clustering with deterministic placement and routing is a good flow with little change to the entire flow, but the mean delay is reduced by 5.0%, the standard deviation is reduced by 6.4%, and the runtime is slightly reduced compared to the deterministic flow. Finally, while its improvement over timing is small, stochastic routing is able to reduce the total wire length by 4.5% and to reduce the overall runtime by 4.2% compared to deterministic routing.