0.8 V CMOS adiabatic differential switch logic circuit using bootstrap technique for low-voltage low-power VLSI

A novel 0.8 V CMOS adiabatic differential switch logic (ADSL) circuit using the bootstrap technique for low-voltage low-power VLSI is reported. Using capacitance coupling effects from the bootstrap transistors with the related isolating transistors, this 0.8 VADSL circuit has a 52% smaller propagation delay time, consuming 26% less power as compared to the energy efficient logic circuit.     

A 1.5 V full-swing BiCMOS dynamic logic gate circuit suitable forVLSI using low-voltage BiCMOS technology

This paper presents a 1.5 V full-swing BiCMOS dynamic logic gate circuit, based on a dynamic pull-down BiPMOS configuration, suitable for VLSI using low-voltage BiCMOS technology. With an output load of 0.2 pf, the 1.5 V full-swing BiCMOS dynamic logic gate circuit shows a more than 1.8 times improvement in speed as compared to the CMOS static one     

A 1.5-V full-swing bootstrapped CMOS large capacitive-load drivercircuit suitable for low-voltage CMOS VLSI

This paper reports a 1.5-V full-swing bootstrapped CMOS large capacitive-load driver circuit using two bootstrap capacitors to enhance the switching speed for low-voltage CMOS VLSI. For a supply voltage of 1.5 V, the full-swing bootstrapped CMOS driver circuit shows a 2.2 times improvement in switching speed in driving a capacitive load of 10 pF as compared to the conventional CMOS driver circuit. Even for a supply voltage of 1 V, this full-swing bootstrapped CMOS large capacitive-load driver circuit is still advantageous     

Design of a 1.5 V full-swing bootstrapped BiCMOS logic circuit

A low voltage full-swing BiCMOS bootstrapping technique that allows the design of BiCMOS logic circuits at supply voltages down to 1.5 V is presented. This is the first 1.5-V design technique that does not require complementary bipolar devices. The technique is shown to have significant advantages over existing low voltage BiCMOS logic designs in sub-3 V operation. Inverter gates fabricated using a 0.8-μm technology were operated at 150 MHz with a supply voltage of 1.5 V. Implementation of this technique on dynamic logic is also demonstrated and experimental results match closely with simulation     

Sub-1 V CMOS large capacitive-load driver circuit using directbootstrap technique for low-voltage CMOS VLSI

A novel sub-1 V CMOS large capacitive-load driver circuit using a direct bootstrap technique for low-voltage CMOS VLSI is reported. For a supply voltage of 1 V, the CMOS large capacitive-load driver circuit using the direct bootstrap technique shows a 3.3 times improvement in switching speed in driving a capacitive load of 2 pF compared to the conventional bootstrapped CMOS driver circuit using an indirect bootstrap technique. Even for a supply voltage of 0.8 V, this CMOS large capacitive load driver circuit using the direct bootstrap technique is still advantageous     

Noncomplementary BiCMOS logic and CMOS logic for low-voltage,low-power operation-a comparative study

This paper presents results of a comprehensive comparative study of six bipolar complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) noncomplementary logic design styles and two CMOS logic styles for low-voltage, low-power operation. These logic styles have been compared for switching power consumption and power efficiency (power-delay product). The examination offers two alternative approaches never used in other comparative studies. First, all BiCMOS-based styles are compared to low-power CMOS styles as opposed to a single conventional static CMOS style. Second, a low-power methodology has been used as opposed to performance methodology referred to in the previous logic comparisons. The styles examined are bootstrapped BiCMOS, bootstrapped full-swing BiCMOS, bootstrapped bipolar CMOS, Seng-Rofail's bootstrapped BiCMOS, modified full-swing BiCMOS, dynamic full-swing BiCMOS, double pass-transistor CMOS, and inverter-based CMOS. These design styles have been compared at various power supply voltages (0.9-3 V), with various output load capacitances (0.1-1 pF) at the frequency 50 MHz and temperature 27°C. The results clearly show which logic style is the most beneficial for which specific conditions     

A self-controllable voltage level (SVL) circuit and its low-power high-speed CMOS circuit applications

A self-controllable voltage level (SVL) circuit which can supply a maximum dc voltage to an active-load circuit on request or can decrease the dc voltage supplied to a load circuit in standby mode was developed. This SVL circuit can drastically reduce standby leakage power of CMOS logic circuits with minimal overheads in terms of chip area and speed. Furthermore, it can also be applied to memories and registers, because such circuits fitted with SVL circuits can retain data even in the standby mode. The standby power of an 8-bit 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS ripple carry adder (RCA) with an on-chip SVL circuit is 8.2 nW, namely, 4.0% of that of an equivalent conventional adder, while the output signal delay is 786 ps, namely, only 2.3% longer than that of the equivalent conventional adder. Moreover, the standby power of a 512-bit memory cell array incorporating an SVL circuit for a 0.13-/spl mu/m 512-bit SRAM is 69.1 nW, which is 3.9% of that of an equivalent conventional memory-cell array. The read-access time of this 0.13-/spl mu/m SRAM is 285 ps, that is, only 2 ps slower than that of the equivalent SRAM.     

Fully depleted SOI CMOS logic gates for low-voltage applications

Approaches are discussed to the design of low-voltage, low-power VLSI circuits based on SOI nanotransistors. Computer simulations are run to analyze the switching performance of NOT, 2NAND, and 2NOR gates implemented in CMOS technology with fully depleted SOI nanotransistors of different design parameters. The delay and switching power are investigated as functions of supply voltage over a range lying below 1 V, for different values of back-gate bias. The possibility is investigated of operating the transistors of a logic gate in subthreshold mode. This approach is shown to provide a significant reduction in switching power under the right conditions.     

A BiCMOS dynamic multiplier using Wallace tree reductionarchitecture and 1.5-V full-swing BiCMOS dynamic logic circuit

The authors present a BiCMOS dynamic multiplier, which is free from race and charge-sharing problems, using Wallace tree reduction architecture and 1.5-V full-swing BiCMOS dynamic logic circuit. Based on a 1-μm BiCMOS technology, a 1.5-V 8×8 multiplier designed, shows a 2.3× improvement in speed as compared to the CMOS static one     

On the design of low-voltage, low-power CMOS analog multipliers forRF applications

Novel low-voltage, low-power techniques in the design of portable wireless communication systems are required. Two system examples of low-power analog multipliers operating from a 1.2 V supply are presented. These proposed structures achieve the required multiplication function by using current processing. The circuits were fabricated using standard double-poly CMOS processes for a 900 MHz application. Measurement results of the prototypes are comparable to other higher voltage designs     

Low-power logic circuit and SRAM cell applications with silicon on depletion Layer CMOS (SODEL CMOS) technology

In this paper, the switching performance of Silicon on Depletion Layer CMOS (SODEL CMOS) is investigated with a view to realizing high-speed and low-power CMOS applications. Thanks to smaller parasitic capacitance, the propagation delay time (/spl tau//sub pd/) in SODEL CMOS has been improved by up to 25% compared to that of conventional bulk CMOS in five stacked nFET inverters at the same V/sub dd/. It is also confirmed that about 30% better power-delay product can be realized at the same /spl tau//sub pd/ with reduced V/sub dd/ in SODEL CMOS. In SRAM cell applications, SODEL CMOS shows high Static Noise Margin (SNM) of /spl sim/95 mV at V/sub dd/=0.6 V. Smaller bitline delay is expected and confirmed in SODEL CMOS SRAM by SPICE simulations. Latch-up immunity for /spl alpha/-particle irradiation in SODEL CMOS was also found to be comparable to that of conventional bulk CMOS. Therefore, SODEL CMOS device and circuit technology is expected to provide a better solution for low-power system-on-a-chip (SoC).     

Latched CMOS differential logic (LCDL) for complex high-speed VLSI

A CMOS differential logic, called the latched CMOS differential logic (LCDL), is proposed and analyzed. LCDL circuits can implement a complex combinational logic function in a single gate and form the pipeline structure as well. It is shown that the LCDL with a fan-in number between 6 and 15 has the highest operation speed among those differential logic circuits. It is also free from charge-sharing, clock-skew, and race problems. Experimental results verified the high speed and race-free performance of the proposed LCDL     

Design of a CMOS low-power and low-voltage four-quadrant analog multiplier

A New CMOS four-quadrant analog multiplier is presented in this paper. The proposed multiplier is suitable for low supply-voltage operation and its power consumption is also very low. The proposed circuit has been simulated with the HSPICE and simulation results are given to confirm the feasibility of the proposed analog multiplier. According to the simulation results, under the supply voltage of 1.5 V, the input range of the proposed multiplier can be 120 mV and the corresponding maximum linearity error is less than 3.2%. Moreover, the power dissipation of the proposed circuit is only 6.7 μW. The proposed circuit is expected to be useful in analog signal processing applications.     

CMOS design and analysis of low-voltage signaling methodology for energy efficient on-chip interconnects

This paper provides a comparative study of the low-voltage signaling methodologies in terms of delay, energy dissipation, and energy delay product (energy×delay), and sensitivity technology process variations, and noise. We also present the design of two symmetric low-swing driver-receiver pairs for driving signals on the global interconnect lines. The key advantage of the proposed signaling schemes is that they require only one power supply and threshold voltage, hence significantly reducing the design complexity. The proposed signaling schemes were implemented on 1.0 V CMOS technology, for signal transmission along a wire-length of 10 mm. When compared with other counterpart symmetric and asymmetric low-swing signaling schemes, the proposed schemes perform better in terms of delay, energy dissipation and energy×delay.     

A 5-GHz low-voltage and low-power CMOS LC voltage controlled oscillator for 802.11a wireless LAN applications

In this paper, a low phase noise and low power 5.15?GHz LC-tank VCO is presented and analysed. The phase noise achieved is??91,??116 and??126?dBc/Hz at 100?KHz, 1?MHz and 3?MHz offsets respectively from the carrier frequency of 5.15?GHz, with 1.8?V power supply voltage and giving a very low power consumption of about 2.5?mW by considering the proposed oscillator topology, which consumes less power than the classical oscillator using the traditional differential transconductor pair. A broad tuning range has been achieved by means of standard mode PMOS varactors. The tunability of the designed VCO covers 530?MHz, from 4.78?GHz up to 5.31?GHz. Predicted performance has been verified by analyses and simulations using ELDO-RF tool with 0.35?µm CMOS TSMC parameters.     

A low-power high-quality CMOS image sensor using 1.5 V 4T pinned photodiode and dual-CDS column-parallel single-slope ADC

This paper presents a low-power high-quality CMOS image sensor (CIS) using 1.5 V 4T pinned photodiode (4T-PPD) and dual correlated double sampling (dual-CDS) column-parallel single-slope ADC. A five-finger shaped pixel layer is proposed to solve image lag caused by low-voltage 4T-PPD. Dual-CDS is used to reduce random noise and the nonuniformity between columns. Dual-mode counting method is proposed to improve circuit robustness. A prototype sensor was fabricated using a 0.11 µm CMOS process. Measurement results show that the lag of the five-finger shaped pixel is reduced by 80% compared with the conventional rectangular pixel, the chip power consumption is only 36 mW, the dynamic range is 67.3 dB, the random noise is only 1.55 e^–_rms, and the figure-of-merit is only 1.98 e^–·nJ, thus realizing low-power and high-quality imaging.     

An efficient and reliable MRF-based methodology for designing low-power VLSI circuits

Noise-interference is one of the major concerns in low-power VLSI circuits. Due to power supply downscaling, these circuits have an extremely limited noise margin that is inadequate for dealing with intrinsic and extrinsic noise. The MRF-based design has been accepted as a highly effective method for designing noise-tolerant low-power circuits. However, the MRF-based circuits suffer from a complex structure and the methods which tried to simplify the structure always sacrificed the noise immunity for hardware simplicity. In this paper, we propose a novel MRF-based method for designing efficient and reliable low-power VLSI circuits. For the first time, an innovative reliability boosting mechanism based on maximum conditional correct probability is incorporated into an efficient MRF-based structure which leads to highly reliable circuits with considerably low cost, delay, and power consumption. The proposed method demonstrates the best performance among all of the previously reported methods. Moreover, the Monte Carlo simulations confirm that the proposed method can preserve its superior noise immunity even under serious process, voltage, and temperature variations.     

Modeling of the bulk versus SOI CMOS performances for the optimal design of APS circuits in low-power low-voltage applications

In this paper, we present the top-down design of an active pixel sensor (APS) circuit using an analytical model of its architecture. The model is applied to compare the performances of bulk versus silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS processes and devices on the designs and performance of several 50-frames/s imagers in 2-/spl mu/m and 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS with different pixels array sizes. For 2-/spl mu/m SOI, results show a reduction by two of the power consumption and a dynamic range increase of 0.85 V under a 3-V supply. This results in an SNR of 79 dB instead of 76. Fixed pattern noise (FPN) is also reduced from 2.7 to 1.8 mV which represents 0.26% and 0.08% of the dynamic range, respectively. For 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS SOI, results show a reduction by 6.5 of the power consumption, FPN more than five time better, and a dynamic range increase of 0.29 V under a 1.5-V supply. However, because of the increase of the thermal noise due to the particular design choice, an SNR of 60.3 dB is achieved compared to 63 in bulk. A better SNR in SOI than in bulk can be achieved but at the expense of power consumption and FPN. However, this could be combined with an increase in pixels number in SOI compared to bulk. Potential results achievable in SOI have to our knowledge never been reached by bulk APS imagers up to now.     

CMOS differential current conveyors and applications for analog VLSI

Novel differential current conveyor building blocks are defined. CMOS realizations of these blocks are then given. One of the proposed conveyor circuits is seen to be insensitive to the threshold voltage variation due to the body effect. The properties of the differential current conveyors are shown to be suitable for VLSI applications employing MOS transistors operating in the ohmic region. This is demonstrated by realizing four quadrant multiplier cells, current mode and mixed mode continuous time MOSFET-C filters based on the proposed blocks. PSPICE simulations indicate the excellent performance of the differential current converyor circuits.     

A novel configuration for UWB LNA suitable for low-power and low-voltage applications

Two UWB LNAs based on a new configuration suitable for low-power and low-voltage applications are presented. The proposed configuration saves bias circuit because of sharing only a bias circuit. In designing LNA-1 good phase linearity property achievement is followed for low-power and low-voltage applications, while in LNA-2 the main concerns are high power gain, by keeping low-power consumption, and small chip area. By taking advantages of resistive-feedback and RLC load, wideband input matching is obtained. Based on the proposed configuration, accompany with complete noise analysis, noise of LNA-2 is highly suppressed and flat noise figure is reaped. The 130 nm CMOS LNA-1 and LNA-2 dissipate 2.95 mW and 6.09 mW, respectively, from 0.7 V supply voltage, without using of forward-body-bias technology. Input return loss of both LNAs is below than ?10.5 dB while LNA-1 achieves average power gain of 9 dB and LNA-2 17 dB. The group-delay variation of LNA-1 is about ±6.1 ps over the band of 3.1–10.6 GHz. The NF of LNA-2 is 2.4–2.89 dB over the whole band of interest.