Timing–driven variation–aware synthesis of hybrid mesh/tree clock distribution networks

Clock skew variations adversely affect timing margins, limiting performance, reducing yield, and may also lead to functional faults. Non-tree clock distribution networks, such as meshes and crosslinks, are employed to reduce skew and also to mitigate skew variations. These networks, however, increase the dissipated power while consuming significant metal resources. Several methods have been proposed to trade off power and wires to reduce skew. In this paper, an efficient algorithm is presented to reduce clock skew variations while minimizing power dissipation and metal area overhead. With a combination of nonuniform meshes and unbuffered trees (UBT), a variation-tolerant hybrid clock distribution network is produced. Clock skew variations are selectively reduced based on circuit timing information generated by static timing analysis (STA). The skew variation reduction procedure is prioritized for critical timing paths, since these paths are more sensitive to skew variations. A framework for skew variation management is proposed. The algorithm has been implemented in a standard 65 nm cell library using standard EDA tools, and tested on several benchmark circuits. As compared to other nonuniform mesh construction methods that do not support managed skew tolerance, experimental results exhibit a 41% average reduction in metal area and a 43% average reduction in power dissipation. As compared to other methods that employ skew tolerance management techniques but do not use a hybrid clock topology, an 8% average reduction in metal area and a 9% average reduction in power dissipation are achieved.     

时钟网格与时钟树设计方法对比研究

基于片上偏差对芯片性能的影响,分析对比了时钟树设计与时钟网格设计,重点分析了时钟网格抗OCV影响的优点,并利用实际电路应用两种方法分别进行设计对比,通过结果分析,验证了理论分析的正确性,证明在抗OCV及时序优化时钟网格方法具有很大的优势。     

Clock Buffer Polarity Assignment for Power Noise Reduction

Power/ground noise is a major source of VLSI circuit timing variations. This work aims to reduce clock network induced power noise by assigning different signal polarities (opposite switchings) to clock buffers in an existing buffered clock tree. Three assignment algorithms are proposed: 1) partitioning; 2) 2-coloring on minimum spanning tree; and 3) recursive min-matching. A post-processing of clock buffer sizing is performed to achieve desired clock skew. SPICE based experimental results indicate that our techniques could reduce the average peak current and average delay variations by 50% and 51%, respectively.      

低偏斜、高变化容忍的层次化无缓冲谐振时钟分布网络

无缓冲谐振时钟分布网络能够最小化同步系统的时钟功耗。但由于没有缓冲器,时钟网络的偏斜受到多方面因素的影响,例如时钟互连线寄生参数的差异,非平衡时钟负载以及工艺、电压温度变化。本文提出了一种层次化的两相无缓冲谐振时钟互连网络结构,将网格型和树型结构的各自优点相结合。在TSMC 65nm标准CMOS工艺下,通过一个流水线乘法器电路分析了该结构时钟网络的偏斜及变化容忍特性。版图后仿真结果表明,层次化时钟网络的偏斜分别比纯网格和纯H树结构时钟网络降低超过75%和65%,而且在非平衡时钟负载或工艺、电压温度变化的情况下,时钟网络偏斜最高小于7ps,不超过整个时钟周期（约760ps）的1%。     

Clock Mesh Network Design with Through‐Silicon Vias in 3D Integrated Circuits

Many methodologies for clock mesh networks have been introduced for two‐dimensional integrated circuit clock distribution networks, such as methods to reduce the total wirelength for power consumption and to reduce the clock skew variation through consideration of buffer placement and sizing. In this paper, we present a methodology for clock mesh to reduce both the clock skew and the total wirelength in three‐dimensional integrated circuits. To reduce the total wirelength, we construct a smaller mesh size on a die where the clock source is not directly connected. We also insert through‐silicon vias (TSVs) to distribute the clock signal using an effective clock TSV insertion algorithm, which can reduce the total wirelength on each die. The results of our proposed methods show that the total wirelength was reduced by 12.2%, the clock skew by 16.11%, and the clock skew variation by 11.74%, on average. These advantages are possible through increasing the buffer area by 2.49% on the benchmark circuits.     

基于Encounter的低功耗时钟树综合研究

以基于Cadence CCOPT引擎设计时钟树为例,介绍了以降低时钟树功耗为主要目的,使用门控技术,以及选择合适缓冲器、反相器构建时钟树的方法。通过完成物理设计动态仿真和功耗分析的数据表明,在保证时序收敛的前提下,使用门控技术和选用不同缓冲器、反向器对整个时钟树的功耗及性能影响进行分析。实验结构表明,对使用门控技术芯片的功耗在不同的操作条件下,整个时钟树上的功耗节省约50%;适合使用缓冲器和方向器构建时钟树。同时,在使用达到相同驱动的能力缓冲器和反相器情况下,使用缓冲器的时钟树较使用反相器的时钟树节省30%。     

Analysis of the impact of process variations on clock skew

In this paper, we analyze the impact of process variations on the clock skew of VLSI circuits designed in deep submicrometer technologies. With smaller feature size, the utilization of a dense buffering scheme has been proposed in order to realize efficient and noise-immune clock distribution networks. However, the local variance of MOSFET electrical parameters, such as V_T and I_DSS, increases with scaling of device dimensions, thus causing large intradie variability of the timing properties of clock buffers. As a consequence, we expect process variations to be a significant source of clock skew in deep submicrometer technologies. In order to accurately verify this hypothesis, we applied advanced statistical simulation techniques and accurate mismatch measurement data in order to thoroughly characterize the impact of intradie variations on industrial clock distribution networks. The comparison with Monte Carlo simulations performed by neglecting the effect of mismatch confirmed that local device variations play a crucial role in the design and sizing of the clock distribution network     

ASIC设计中时钟偏移分析

目前的ASIC设计中,时钟偏移对同步数字电路的影响越来越大,它也越来越受到高速电路设计者的关注,因此如何解决它给电路带来的不利影响成了设计中的重要挑战、文章分析了时钟偏移的产生机理,然后提出了怎样使用CTS在时钟树中插入不同驱动能力的缓冲器,以平衡时钟网络,最后还分析了如何利用有用的时钟偏移来改善电路的时序。     

ASIC设计中时钟偏移分析

目前的ASIC设计中,时钟偏移对同步数字电路的影响越来越大,它也越来越受到高速电路设计者的关注,因此如何解决它给电路带来的不利影响成了设计中的重要挑战.分析了时钟偏移的产生机理,提出了怎样使用CTS在时钟树中插入不同驱动能力的缓冲器,以平衡时钟网络,以及如何利用有用的时钟偏移来改善电路的时序.     

专用集成电路设计中的时钟偏移分析

目前的专用集成电路设计中，时钟偏移对同步数字电路的影响越来越大，它也越来越受到高速电路设计者的关注。因此如何解决它给电路带来的不利影响成了设计中的重要挑战。本文分析了时钟偏移的产生机理，然后提出了怎样使用CTS在时钟树中插入不同驱动能力的缓冲器，以平衡时钟网络，最后还分析了如何利用有用的时钟偏移来改善电路的时序。     

用分量匹配法实现对高速时钟电路的动态优化

本文讨论如何设计工作在GHz频率下的VLSI芯片时钟电路.时钟树采用平衡平面布局消除时钟偏差;利用插入缓冲器对电路性能进行动态优化.最后用一个电路模拟软件对电路进行评估.和以往的工作相比较,本文实现了在频域内对时钟电路的优化,显著地提高了仿真速度.     

The design and implementation of a low-power clock-poweredmicroprocessor

We describe the design and implementation of a 16-bit clock-powered microprocessor that dissipates only 2.9 mW at 15.8 MHz based on laboratory measurements. Clock-powered logic (CPL) has been developed as a new approach for designing and building low-power VLSI systems that exploit the benefits of supply-voltage-scaled static CMOS and energy-recovery CMOS techniques. In CPL, the clock signals are a source of ac power for the other large on-chip capacitive loads. Clock amplitude and waveform shape combine to reduce power. By exploiting energy recovery and an energy-conserving clock driver, it is possible to build ultra-low-power CMOS processors with this approach. We compare the CPL approach with a conventional, fully dissipative approach for a processor with a similar ISA and VLSI architecture which was designed using the same set of VLSI CAD tools. The simulation results indicate that the CPL microprocessor would dissipate 40% less power than the conventional design     

Design of Thermally Robust Clock Trees Using Dynamically Adaptive Clock Buffers

On-chip temperature gradient has emerged as a major design concern for high-performance integrated circuits for the current and future technology nodes. Clock skew is an undesirable phenomenon for synchronous digital circuits that is exacerbated by the temperature difference between various parts of the clock tree. The main aim of this paper is to provide intelligent solution for minimizing the temperature-dependent clock skew by designing dynamically adaptive circuit elements, particularly the clock buffers. Using an RLC model of the clock tree, we investigate the effect of on-chip temperature gradient on the clock skew for a number of temperature profiles that can arise in practice due to different architectures and applications. As an effective way of mitigating the variable clock skew, we present an adaptive circuit technique that senses the temperature of different parts of the clock tree and adjusts the driving strengths of the corresponding clock buffers dynamically to reduce the clock skew. Simulation results demonstrate that our adaptive technique is capable of reducing the skew by up to 92.4%, leading to much improved clock synchronization and design performance.      

Adaptive fault-tolerant DVFS with dynamic online AVF prediction

Advances in silicon technology and shrinking the feature size to nanometer levels make random variations and low reliability of nano-devices the most important concern for fault-tolerant design. Design of reliable and fault-tolerant embedded processors is mostly based on developing techniques that compensate reliability shortcomings by adding hardware or software redundancy. The recently-proposed redundancy adding techniques are generally applied uniformly to all parts of a system and lead to heavy overheads and inefficiencies in terms of performance, power, and area. Efficient employment of non-uniform redundancy becomes possible when a quantitative analysis of a system behavior while encountering transient faults is provided. In this work, we present a quantitative analysis of the behavior of an embedded processor regarding transient faults and propose a new approach that accurately predicts the architecture vulnerability factor (AVF) in real-time. Another critical concern in design of new-silicon processors is power consumption issue. Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) is an effective method for controlling both energy consumption and performance of a system. Since rate of radiation-induced transient faults depends on operating frequency and supply voltage, DVFS techniques are recently shown to have compromising effects on electronic system reliability. Therefore, ignoring the effects of voltage scaling on fault rate could considerably degrade the system reliability. Here, by exploiting the proposed online AVF prediction methodology and based on analytic derivation, we propose a reliability-aware adaptive dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) approach in case study of Multi-Processor System on Chip (MPSoC) with Multiple Clock Domain (MCD) pipeline architectures in which the frequency and voltage are scaled by simultaneously considering all three of power consumption, reliability, and performance. Comparing to the traditional methods of reliability-aware DVFS systems, the proposed reliability-aware DVFS method yields 50% better power saving at the same reliability level.     

Design and Optimization of On-Chip Interconnects Using Wave-Pipelined Multiplexed Routing

Every new VLSI technology generation has resulted in interconnects increasingly limiting the performance, area, and power dissipation of new processors. Subsequently, it is necessary to devise efficient interconnect design techniques to reduce the impact of VLSI interconnects on overall system design. New optimizations of a wave-pipelined multiplexed (WPM) interconnect routing circuit are described in this paper. These WPM circuits can be used with current interconnect repeater circuits to further reduce interconnect delay, interconnect area, transistor area, and/or power dissipation. For example, new area constrained WPM circuit optimizations illustrate that the interconnect circuit power can be reduced by 26% or the interconnect performance can be improved by 74%. Moreover, in both these cases, because a significant number of repeaters are eliminated, the transistor area can reduce by 41% or 29%, respectively. Finally, the tolerance of WPM circuits to crosstalk noise, power supply noise, clock skew, and manufacturing variations is also presented. This study of tolerance levels defines the conditions under which the WPM circuit will function correctly, and it is shown in this paper for the first time that WPM circuits are robust enough to operate with variability that can be encountered in deep submicrometer technologies.     

A 90 nm CMOS 16 Gb/s Transceiver for Optical Interconnects

Interconnect architectures which leverage high-bandwidth optical channels offer a promising solution to address the increasing chip-to-chip I/O bandwidth demands. This paper describes a dense, high-speed, and low-power CMOS optical interconnect transceiver architecture. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) data rate is extended for a given average current and corresponding reliability level with a four-tap current summing FIR transmitter. A low-voltage integrating and double-sampling optical receiver front-end provides adequate sensitivity in a power efficient manner by avoiding linear high-gain elements common in conventional transimpedance-amplifier (TIA) receivers. Clock recovery is performed with a dual-loop architecture which employs baud-rate phase detection and feedback interpolation to achieve reduced power consumption, while high-precision phase spacing is ensured at both the transmitter and receiver through adjustable delay clock buffers. A prototype chip fabricated in 1 V 90 nm CMOS achieves 16 Gb/s operation while consuming 129 mW and occupying 0.105 mm².     

Performance analysis of a complete adiabatic logic system driven by the proposed power clock generator

We analyze the energy performance of a complete adiabatic circuit/system including the Power Clock Generator （PCG） at the 90 nm CMOS technology node. The energy performance in terms of the conversion efficiency of the PCG is extensively carried out under the variations of supply voltage, process comer and the driver transistor＇s width. We propose an energy-efficient singe cycle control circuit based on the two-stage comparator for the synchronous charge recovery sinusoidal power clock generator （PCG）. The proposed PCG is used to drive the 4-bit adiabatic Ripple Carry Adder （RCA） and their simulation results are compared with the adiabatic RCA driven by the reported PCG. We have also simulated the logically equivalent static CMOS RCA circuit to compare the energy saving of adiabatic and non-adiabatic logic circuits. In the clock frequency range from 25 MHz to 1GHz, the proposed PCG gives a maximum conversion efficiency of 56.48%. This research work shows how the design of an efficient PCG increases the energy saving of adiabatic logic.     

基于电路裁剪的统计时钟偏差估计方法

随着集成电路特征尺寸的不断缩小,工艺偏差引起时钟偏差的不确定性,导致时钟偏差呈现出一定的统计特性。分析了哪些时钟路径可能会成为最长、最短路径,提出了一种基于电路裁剪的统计时钟偏差估计方法,可以快速估计时钟偏差的统计特性。实验结果表明,提出的算法可以在很小的精度损失下提高电路模拟的速度。     

Highly Interleaved 5-bit, 250-MSample/s, 1.2-mW ADC With Redundant Channels in 65-nm CMOS

This successive approximation register ADC uses time-interleaving to gain the energy advantage of slower circuits (reduced supply voltage and improved bias points) without sacrificing high speed operation. The drawbacks of interleaving are addressed through architectural solutions. Channel redundancy counteracts the severe yield loss that parallel circuits experience due to local variation. Clock partitioning restricts the distribution of the precise, high-speed sampling clock to three centrally located sampling networks. Only a low frequency clock is distributed across the majority of die area. The skew-resistant global top-plate sampling network is extended to allow overlapped sampling windows without introducing extra sources of crosstalk. The 36-way interleaved 5-bit ADC operates with a core voltage of 800 mV and consumes 1.20 mW total power at 250 MS/s. At Nyquist, the SNDR is 28.4 dB. The 6 redundant channels (17% overhead) increase the yield of the 24 measured chips from 42% to 88%.      

Resonant clocking using distributed parasitic capacitance

A resonant-clock generation and distribution scheme that uses the inherent, parasitic capacitance of the clocked logic as a lumped capacitor in a negative-resistance oscillator is described. Clock energy is resonated between inductors and the parasitic, local clock network to save power over traditional clocking methodologies. Theory predicts that the data passing though the clocked logic will change the clock frequency by less than 1.25%. A resonant clock test chip was designed and fabricated in an IBM 0.13-/spl mu/m partially depleted SOI process. Although the test chip was designed to operate in the gigahertz range using integrated inductors, startup difficulties required the addition of external inductance to reduce the resonant frequency so that the effects of the parasitic capacitance could be measured. The parasitic capacitance is approximately 40 pF per clock phase, resulting in a clock frequency between 106 and 146 MHz, depending on biasing. At its most efficient bias point, the clock dissipated 2.09 mW, which is approximately 35% less power than a conventional, buffer-driven clock. The maximum period jitter measured in the resonant clock due to changing data in the clocked latches was 55 ps at 124 MHz, or 0.68% of the clock period.