5-GHz 32-bit integer execution core in 130-nm dual-V/sub T/ CMOS

A 32-bit integer execution core containing a Han-Carlson arithmetic-logic unit (ALU), an 8-entry /spl times/ 2 ALU instruction scheduler loop and a 32-entry /spl times/ 32-bit register file is described. In a 130 nm six-metal, dual-V/sub T/ CMOS technology, the 2.3 mm/sup 2/ prototype contains 160 K transistors. Measurements demonstrate capability for 5-GHz single-cycle integer execution at 25/spl deg/C. The single-ended, leakage-tolerant dynamic scheme used in the ALU and scheduler enables up to 9-wide ORs with 23% critical path speed improvement and 40% active leakage power reduction when compared to a conventional Kogge-Stone implementation. On-chip body-bias circuits provide additional performance improvement or leakage tolerance. Stack node preconditioning improves ALU performance by 10%. At 5 GHz, ALU power is 95 mW at 0.95 V and the register file consumes 172 mW at 1.37 V. The ALU performance is scalable to 6.5 GHz at 1.1 V and to 10 GHz at 1.7 V, 25/spl deg/C.     

A 1.5 V CMOS 4-bit microcomputer needs only 100 /spl mu/W

Describes a new 4-bit microcomputer fabricated using a low-power silicon gate CMOS process and working from a supply voltage down to 1.2 V. The /spl mu/C can directly drive up to seven 3:1 multiplexed LCD digits, scan up 48 keys, and perform 4-bit handshaking data transfer with external devices. 16-bit, single-word instructions and eight stack levels permit efficient use of the 640-word ROM. Operating from a 4.19 MHz crystal, the device has an instruction cycle time of 15 /spl mu/s. An operating power of 100 /spl mu/W at 1.5 W makes the chip ideal for performing control and timing functions in battery operated applications.     

A 16-bit LSI minicomputer

A 16-bit LSI minicomputer, using n-channel MOS technology, has been developed. The instruction set contains 126 instructions including floating-point arithmetic and is fully compatible with commercially available minicomputers such as the TOSBAC-40 and the Interdata 70. An execution speed of 2 /spl mu/s is obtained for register to register (RR) instructions. All the central processing unit (CPU) functions are implemented on a single board. An external microprogram ROM and short-single address microinstructions are used to realize high-system performance and reduce the chip area and the package pin numbers. Two LSI chips for the system, a single-chip processor, and a bit-sliced bus controller, are fabricated by a new n-channel MOS technology named the gate oxidation method (GOM) which provides a high-packing density, high speed, and a simplified process.     

A direct digital frequency synthesizer with fourth-order phase domain /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ noise shaper and 12-bit current-steering DAC

This paper presents a direct digital frequency synthesizer (DDFS) with a 16-bit accumulator, a fourth-order phase domain single-stage /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ interpolator, and a 300-MS/s 12-bit current-steering DAC based on the Q/sup 2/ Random Walk switching scheme. The /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ interpolator is used to reduce the phase truncation error and the ROM size. The implemented fourth-order single-stage /spl Delta//spl Sigma/ noise shaper reduces the effective phase bits by four and reduces the ROM size by 16 times. The DDFS prototype is fabricated in a 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS technology with active area of 1.11mm/sup 2/ including a 12-bit DAC. The measured DDFS spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) is greater than 78 dB using a reduced ROM with 8-bit phase, 12-bit amplitude resolution and a size of 0.09 mm/sup 2/. The total power consumption of the DDFS is 200mW with a 3.3-V power supply.     

A 16-kbit nonvolatile charge addressed memory

A 16-kbit nonvolatile charge addressed memory (NOVCAM) is described. A unique cell design allows a high-density memory array layout without reduced line widths or spacings. A cell size of 0.5 square mils is produced by a seven mask process with 6-/spl mu/m polysilicon gates, 10-/spl mu/m aluminum gates, and 10-/spl mu/m minimum spacing on all mask levels. Charge addressed write and read operations are implemented with a very simple interface between the memory array and a two-phase dynamic shift register. The memory is organized as 256 columns by 64 rows. Two 64-bit shift registers provide data access to the memory array via a 2:1 column decoder. With single polysilicon processing the memory array is 50/spl times/161 mils; the 16-kbit chip is 131/spl times/200 mils.     

A configurable ROM circuit for use in gate arrays

A double word-line memory ROM (DWM-ROM) for use in gate arrays is described. It allows for an automatic layout by reducing the input pin count in the word lines by using two-step addressing. The advantage of this method has been verified by implementing a 16-bit microprocessor using an 8 K-gate array, based on a gate-isolated cell configuration, employing 1.5-/spl mu/m double-metal CMOS technology. The 16-bit /spl times/ 64-word ROM in the processor saves 30% of the transistor area due to the DWM-ROM.     

A 2-/spl mu/m CMOS 10-MHz Microprogrammable Signal Processing Core With an On-Chip Multiport Memory Bank

In this paper a 2-/spl mu/m CMOS, microprogrammable Signal Processor Core (SPC) is described,intended as the number crunching unit in single-chip general purpose digital signal processors. This core contains a 16 X 16 bit paralleI multiplier, a 40-bit multiprecision accumulator, a 40--32-bit extractor, an overflow detection unit, a format adjuster, and a three-port register file for local storage of 15 operands. Its 100-ns throughput rate makes it highly suitable for signal processing systems with sample rates up to 50 kHz (speech, telecom, and HiFi audio). The architecture of this unit is discussed in detail.The design approach, using full-custom cells, bit-sliced functional blocks, and a complete bottom-up logical verification of mask data, is also discribed. The Signal Processor Core contains 19 200 transistors on a 15.5-mm/sup 2/ area. This compares with a packing density of 1200 transistors/mm/sup 2/.     

A 5-bit building block for 20 MHz A/D converters

Describes a monolithic, fully parallel 5-bit A/D converter. The chip is fabricated using a standard metal-gate enhancement depletion NMOS technology with 7 /spl mu/m minimum features. The chip contains 31 strobed comparators, latches, combinational logic, a 5/spl times/31 bit ROM, TTL buffers and a 4-bit DAC. This makes it a building block for two-step parallel 8-bit A/D converters. Maximum conversion rate is 20 MHz and DC linearity is better than /SUP 1///SUB 4/ LSB for 80 mV quantization step size.     

A 65 mW 128K EB-ROM

A low power read-only memory (128K EB-ROM) has been developed using direct electron-beam data writing and 2 /spl mu/m VLSI fabrication technology. Programming of information in the ROM is accomplished by selective use of a field oxide in place of a thin gate oxide. The memory cell array is divided into eight current discharge (CD) units. Only one of the eight CD units, which contains a selected cell, is activated by the 3-bit extra decoder. The large capacitance enlarged by the Miller effect is markedly reduced. Moreover, the total capacitance to be precharged is also reduced. High performance output buffer circuitry is adopted, which has a high logic threshold voltage. As a result, the fabricated 128K EB-ROM is capable of 65 mW power dissipation under 400 ns cycle time and 5 V DC supply voltage conditions and 200 ns access time. Memory cell and chip dimensions are 8 /spl mu/m/spl times/7.75/spl mu/m and 3.75 mm/spl times/5.5 mm, respectively.     

VMOS ROM

A new v-groove MOS (VMOS) read-only memory (ROM) is presented. The static 16-kbit ROM operates from a single 5-V supply, features typical and worst case access times of 160 ns and 200 ns, respectively, and has a die size of 120/spl times/140 mil/SUP 2/ using 6-/spl mu/m design rules. The purposes for fabricating the VMOS ROM are to demonstrate the large-scale integration (LSI) yield feasibility of the VMOS process, and to provide a vehicle for widely varying circuit and process experiments. It is estimated on the basis of experimental data that two new VMOS process techniques, called `linear' and `self-aligned' VMOS, will reduce the 16-kbit ROM die size to 100/spl times/120 mil/SUP 2/ (6-/spl mu/m rules).     

A 1000 FPS at 128/spl times/128 vision processor with 8-bit digitized I/O

This paper presents a mixed-signal programmable chip for high-speed vision applications. It consists of an array of processing elements, arranged to operate in accordance with the principles of single instruction multiple data (SIMD) computing architectures. This chip, implemented in a 0.35-/spl mu/m fully digital CMOS technology, contains /spl sim/ 3.75 M transistors and exhibits peak performance figures of 330 GOPS (8-bit equivalent giga-operations per second), 3.6 GOPS/mm/sup 2/ and 82.5 GOPS/W. It includes structures for image acquisition and for image processing, meaning that it does not require a separate imager for operation. At the sensory side, integration and log-compression sensing circuits are embedded, thus allowing the chip to handle a large variety of illumination conditions. At the processing plane, analog and digital circuits are employed whose parameters can be programmed and their architecture reconfigured for the realization of software-coded processing algorithms. The chip provides, and accepts, 8-bit digitized data through a 32-bit bidirectional data bus which operates at 120 MB/s. Experimental results show that frame rates of 1000 frames per second (FPS) can be achieved under room illumination conditions; applications using exposures of about 50 /spl mu/s have been recently reached by using special illumination setups. The chip can capture an image, run approximately 150 two-dimensional linear convolutions, and download the result in 8-bit digital format, in less than 1 ms. This feature, together with the possibility of executing sequences of user-definable instructions (stored on a full-custom 32-kb on-chip memory), and storing intermediate results (up to 8 grayscale images) makes the chip a true general-purpose sensory/processing device.     

A self-testing 2-/spl mu/m CMOS chip set for FFT applications

A chip set for high-speed radix-2 fast Fourier transform (FFT) applications up to 512 points is described. The chip set comprises a (16+16)/spl times/(12+12)-bit complex number multiplier, and a 16-bit butterfly chip for data reordering, twiddle factor generation, and butterfly arithmetic. The chips have been implemented using a standard cell design methodology on a 2-/spl mu/m bulk CMOS process. Three chips implement a complex FFT butterfly with a throughput of 10 MHz, and are cascadable up to 512 points. The chips feature an offline self-testing capability.     

A CMOS/SOS 4K static RAM

Discusses high density CMOS/SOS technology used to develop a fully static 4096-bit RAM with a five-transistor storage cell. Selection of a five-transistor memory cell has reduced the access to the flip-flop storage element to a single word line transistor and bit line. The word line transistor must be able to prevent data altering currents from entering the memory cell at all times except for the write operation. The write operation is enhanced by reducing the bias voltage across the memory cell, thereby making the current needed to alter the cell smaller. Through the use of a 5 /spl mu/m design rule, the memory cell occupies 2913 /spl mu/m/SUP 2/. The 4096-bit static CMOS/SOS RAM contains 22553 transistors in 20 mm/SUP 2/. Organised as 1024 4-bit words, the RAM has a read cycle time of 350 ns and standby power dissipation of 50 /spl mu/W at V/SUB cc/=5 V and temperature of 27/spl deg/C.     

Coulomb blockade memory using integrated single-electron transistor/metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor gain cells

A 3/spl times/3-bit Coulomb blockade memory cell array has been fabricated in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material. In each cell, the Coulomb blockade effect in a single-electron transistor is used to define two charge states. The charge is stored on a memory node of area 1 /spl mu/m/spl times/1 /spl mu/m or 1 /spl mu/m/spl times/70 nm and is sensed with gain by a metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor. The write/read operation for a selected cell within the array is demonstrated. The measured states are separated by /spl sim/1000 electrons for the 1 /spl mu/m/spl times/1 /spl mu/m memory node cell and by 60 electrons for the 1 /spl mu/m/spl times/70 nm memory node cell. Single-electron transistor controlled operation persists up to a temperature of 65 K.     

A single-chip 80-bit floating point processor

A single-chip 80-bit floating point VLSI processor capable of performing 5.6 million floating point operations per second has been realized using 1.2-/spl mu/m n-well CMOS technology. The processor handles 80-bit double-extended floating point data conforming to IEEE standard 754. The chip has 128 microinstructions which are stored in an on-chip ROM. By programming microinstruction sequences in an external control storage, not only basic arithmetic operation but also special arithmetic functions can be performed. A composite design method supported by a hierarchical design automation system was used to quickly lay out 50K gates including a 64-/spl times/64-bit multiplier and 15 kb of memory on a chip with a die size of 10/spl times/10 mm/SUP 2/. Only 11 man-months were required for the effort.     

A 32-bit execution unit in an advanced NMOS technology

The circuit and design of an experimental 32-bit execution unit are described. It is fabricated in a scaled NMOS single-layer poly-technology with 2-/spl mu/m minimum gate length and low-ohmic polycide for gates and interconnections. The chip (25000 transistors, 16 mm/SUP 2/, 61 pins) is designed with a high degree of regularity and modularity. The circuit performs logic and arithmetic operations and has an on-chip control ROM for instruction decoding. It operates with a single 5-V supply voltage. Measurements resulted in a typical power dissipation of 750 mW and a maximum operation frequency of 6.5 MHz. At this frequency a 32/spl times/32 bit multiplication is performed in less than 5.5 /spl mu/s.     

A reprogrammable EDGE baseband and multimedia handset SoC with 6-mbit embedded DRAM

A CMOS EDGE baseband and multimedia handset SoC features a dual core (microcontroller and DSP) architecture together with all the necessary interface logic and hardware accelerators interconnected by a multi-layer bus. The DSP memory hierarchy features an instruction cache coupled to a 6-Mbit embedded DRAM instruction memory allowing in the field software flexibility (for example dynamic upgrade of DSP software), while minimizing power and area (closely matching a ROM based solution). The chip is implemented in a 130-nm 6-metal layer CMOS process and is packaged in a 12 /spl times/ 12 ball-grid array. Full chip standby mode current is 690 /spl mu/A (with data retention), resulting in a 500 hour complete GSM/EDGE terminal autonomy.     

MicroVAX 32, a 32 bit microprocessor

The MicroVAX 32, a single-chip, 32-bit microprocessor, is described. Implemented in 3-/spl mu/m (drawn) dual aluminium NMOS, the MicroVAX 32 features a VAX compatible programming architecture and instruction set, and on-chip demand paged virtual memory management. Its key innovations are a repartitioning of the VAX architecture, which optimizes chip size without degrading performance, and a simplified hardware architecture with similar benefits. The chip contains 125000 transistor sites, is 8.7/spl times/8.6 mm in size, and dissipates 3 W of power worst-case.     

A 32-bit microprocessor for Smalltalk

SOAR (Smalltalk on a RISC), a 32-bit microprocessor designed for the efficient execution of compiled Smalltalk, is described. The chip, implemented in 4-/spl mu/m single-level metal NMOS technologies, has a cycle time of 400 ns. Pipelining allows an instruction to start each cycle with the exception of loads and stores. The processor contains 35700 transistors, is 320/spl times/432 mil, dissipates 3 W, and is assembled in an 84-lead pin grid array package. A design methodology that included a large CAD effort and provided functioning chips on first silicon was used. The SOAR hardware environment is a SUN workstation that includes a custom SOAR board and extra memory.     

A high-speed multiplier using a redundant binary adder tree

A 16-bit /spl times/ 16-bit multiplier for 2 two's-complement binary numbers based on a new algorithm is described. This multiplier has been fabricated on an LSI chip using a standard n-E/D MOS process technology with a 2.7-/spl mu/m design rule. This multiplier is characterized by use of a binary tree of redundant binary adders. In the new algorithm, n-bit multiplication is performed in a time proportional to log/SUB 2/ n and the physical design of the multiplier is constructed of a regular cellular array. This new algorithm has been proposed by N. Takagi et al. (1982, 1983). The 16-bit/spl times/16-bit multiplier chip size is 5.8 /spl times/ 6.3 mm/SUP 2/ using the new layout for a binary adder tree. The chip contains about 10600 transistors, and the longest logic path includes 46 gates. The multiplication time was measured as 120 ns. It is estimated that a 32-bit /spl times/ 32-bit multiplication time is about 140 ns.