Sleep switch dual threshold voltage domino logic with reduced subthreshold and gate oxide leakage current

A circuit technique is proposed in this paper for simultaneously reducing the subthreshold and gate oxide leakage power consumption in domino logic circuits. PMOS-only sleep transistors and a dual threshold voltage CMOS technology are utilized to place an idle domino logic circuit into a low leakage state. Sleep transistors are added to the dynamic nodes in order to reduce the subthreshold leakage current by strongly turning off all of the high threshold voltage transistors. Similarly, the sleep switches added to the output nodes suppress the voltages across the gate insulating layers of the transistors in the fan-out gates, thereby minimizing the gate tunneling current. The proposed circuit technique lowers the total leakage power by 88 to 97% as compared to the standard dual threshold voltage domino logic circuits. Similarly, a 22 to 44% reduction in the total leakage power is observed as compared to a previously published sleep switch scheme in a 45 nm CMOS technology.     

PMOS-Only Sleep Switch Dual-Threshold Voltage Domino Logic in Sub-65-nm CMOS Technologies

A circuit technique is proposed in this paper for simultaneously reducing the subthreshold and gate oxide leakage power consumption in domino logic circuits. Only p-channel sleep transistors and a dual-threshold voltage CMOS technology are utilized to place an idle domino logic circuit into a low leakage state. Sleep transistors are added to the dynamic nodes in order to reduce the subthreshold leakage current by strongly turning off all of the high-threshold voltage transistors. Similarly, the sleep switches added to the output nodes suppress the voltages across the gate insulating layers of the transistors in the fan-out gates, thereby minimizing the gate tunneling current. The proposed circuit technique lowers the total leakage power by up to 77% and 97% as compared to the standard dual-threshold voltage domino logic circuits at the high and low die temperatures, respectively. Similarly, a 22% to 44% reduction in the total leakage power is observed as compared to a previously published sleep switch scheme in a 45-nm CMOS technology. The energy overhead of the circuit technique is low, justifying the activation of the proposed sleep scheme by providing a net savings in total energy consumption during short idle periods.     

A 30-ps Josephson current injection logic (CIL)

A family of novel Josephson logic circuits called current injection logic (CIL) is presented. In contrast to previous approaches, it combines magnetically coupled interferometers with novel nonlinear injection gates to obtain ultra-fast logic speeds, wide margins, and greater fan-in and fan-out capabilities. Fastest logic delay of 30 ps/gate is measured averaged over two- and four-input OR and AND gates (average fan-in=4.5, average fan-out=2.5) fabricated using 2.5 /spl mu/m nominal design rules. The average power dissipation of these experimental circuits is 6 /spl mu/W/gate. An unprecedented logic delay of 13 ps/stage is measured on a chain of two-input OR gates, and the logic delay for a circuit consisting of two two-input OR gates, the outputs of which are `AND'ed, is measured at 26 ps. The experimental results are found to be in excellent agreement with delay estimates based upon computer simulations.     

Characterization of heterostructure complementary MISFET circuits employing the new gate current model

A complementary logic circuit employing heterostructure MISFET's is shown to have a larger logic swing and noise margin than an E/D MESFET logic circuit. The noise margin is calculated using a new gate current model that is derived by taking into account the small surface potential dependence on the gate voltage at the heterointerface. The circuit simulation indicates that, for multi-input logic gates, a NAND gate configuration is superior to a NOR gate configuration from the viewpoints of noise margin and switching speed. The normalized high- and low-level noise margins are comparatively balanced (34 and 49 percent) for a three-input NAND gate. For a fan-in/fan-out of 3/3 and a 100-fF wiring capacitance condition, a 54-ps delay time and 57-μW power dissipation/gate at a 100-MHz clock frequency are possible for a NAND gate with 0.5-μm gate-length MISFET's at 77 K.     

FLINT+: A runtime-configurable emulation-based stochastic timing analysis framework

ASICs for Stochastic Computing conditions are designed for higher energy-efficiency or performance by sacrificing computational accuracy due to intentional circuit timing violations. To optimize the stochastic behavior, iterative timing analysis campaigns have to be carried out for a variety of circuit timing corner cases. However, the application of common event-driven logic simulators usually leads to excessive analysis runtimes, increasing design time for hardware developers. In this paper, a gate-level netlist-oriented FPGA-based timing analysis framework is proposed, offering a runtime-configuration mechanism for emulating different timing corner cases in hardware without requiring multiple FPGA bitstreams. Logic gates are instrumented with a quantization-based delay model and a critical path selection algorithm is used to reduce the FPGA resource overhead. For an exemplary design space exploration of stochastic CORDIC units, speed-up factors of up to 48 for 10 ps or 476 for 100 ps timing quantization are achieved while maintaining timing behavior deviations lower than 1.5% or 4% to timing simulations, respectively.     

纳米CMOS电路逻辑等效变换

针对纳米CMOS电路连通域结构约束,该文提出了基于逻辑复制方法的电路等效变换技术以降低电路映射复杂性。首先通过对电路中所有的门扇出值进行排序来选定基准高扇出值;然后对于高扇出门单元通过二次方程式计算变换前后复杂度,对复杂度降低的高扇出门单元执行逻辑复制并进行扇出分割。与传统插入反相器方法网表转换法比较,结果表明使用该文提出的方法电路不仅更快速地被映射到纳米混合电路单元上,而且具有更好的时延特性。     

电路抗老化设计中基于门优先的关键门定位方法

随着CMOS工艺尺寸不断缩小,尤其在65 nm及以下的CMOS工艺中,负偏置温度不稳定性(NBTI)已经成为影响CMOS器件可靠性的关键因素。提出了一种基于门优先的关键门定位方法,它基于NBTI的静态时序分析框架,以电路中老化严重的路径集合内的逻辑门为优先,同时考虑了门与路径间的相关性,以共同定位关键门。在45 nm CMOS工艺下对ISCAS基准电路进行实验,结果表明:与同类方法比较,在相同实验环境的条件下,该方法不仅定位关键门的数量更少,而且对关键路径的时延改善率更高,有效地减少了设计开销。     

Variable Input Delay CMOS Logic for Low Power Design

We propose a new complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) gate design that has different delays along various input to output paths within the gate. The delays are accomplished by inserting selectively sized ldquopermanently onrdquo series transistors at the inputs of a logic gate. We demonstrate the use of the variable input delay CMOS gates for a totally glitch-free minimum dynamic power implementations of digital circuits. Applying a linear programming method to the c7552 benchmark circuit and using the gates described in this paper, we obtained a power saving of 58% over an unoptimized design. This power consumption was 18% lower than that for an alternative low power design using conventional CMOS gates. The optimized circuits had the same critical path delays as their original unoptimized versions. Since the overall delay was not allowed to increase, the glitch elimination with conventional gates required insertion of delay buffers on noncritical paths. The use of the variable input delay gates drastically reduced the required number of delay buffers.     

采用精确时延模型基于路径的缓冲器插入时延优化

提出了一种基于路径的缓冲器插入时延优化算法,算法采用高阶模型估计连线时延,用基于查表的非线性时延模型估计门延迟.在基于路径的时延分析基础上,提出了缓冲器插入的时延优化启发式算法.工业测试实例实验表明,该算法能够有效地优化电路时延,满足时延约束.     

Analysis of BiCMOS buffer for input voltages with finite rise time

A BiCMOS digital logic gate is analyzed for input voltages with a finite rise or fall time. A new gate delay model to account for the input slope is developed. A set of accurate yet simple closed-form delay expressions are derived for the first time in terms of the input signal slew rate as well as circuit and device parameters. SPICE simulations are used to verify the accuracy of the analytical delay model. The BiCMOS circuit is characterized in terms of the input slew rate, the fan-in, fan-out, and the circuit delay constants. The model can be incorporated in timing simulators and timing analyzers for BiCMOS ULSI circuit design     

采用精确时延模型基于路径的缓冲器插入时延优化

提出了一种基于路径的缓冲器插入时延优化算法 ,算法采用高阶模型估计连线时延 ,用基于查表的非线性时延模型估计门延迟 .在基于路径的时延分析基础上 ,提出了缓冲器插入的时延优化启发式算法 .工业测试实例实验表明 ,该算法能够有效地优化电路时延 ,满足时延约束     

High-speed frequency dividers with quasi-normally-off GaAs MESFETs

Master-slave binary frequency dividers have been designed and implemented with enhancement-mode GaAs MESFETs by using the so-called LPFL logic approach. A wide range of speed-power performances has been observed: a maximum toggle frequency of 2.8 GHz at P = 15 mW/gate on a dual-clocked frequency divider and an fc,max of 1.73 GHz at Pxtpd = 1 pJ/gate on a single-clocked one. The high-speed performance obtained corresponds to a propagation delay of 145 ps for the constituent NOR-OR gates of fan-in/fan-out = 4/3, and it is made possible by careful optimisation of circuit design parameters.     

A Josephson adder employing high-gain direct-coupled logic gate

A wide-margin adder with a simple configuration employing high-gain direct-coupled logic gates (HDCL's) was studied. A wide-margin half-adder circuit, consisting of a single junction and three HDCL buffer gates, is proposed. In order to obtain a wide-margin circuit, gates were designed to be protective against a noise signal. The experimental circuit fabricated by a conventional Pb alloy Josephson technology with 5-µm minimum line width has shown wide-margin (more than a ± 30-percent bias signal margin) characteristics, as predicted by a computer simulation. This paper also demonstrates that the adder can be simply modified into a wide-margin full adder with a simple configuration by connecting an additional single junction and a buffer gate for a carry signal.     

Shunt-feedback Schottky clamped logic gates

A new approach to digital circuit design is used to develop a new family of TTL-compatible shunt-feedback Schottky clamped logic gates. The virtual ground like input of the shunt-feedback amplifier and the low-impedance input of the familiar diode-biased current source are utilized to perform certain logic and fan-out operations without requiring full logic swings. Voting logic operations as well as conventional Boolean logic operations, such as AND, NAND, OR, NOR, AND-OR, AOI, etc., can all be performed with approximately the same one-gate delay of 2.5 ns. Average dissipation of the NAND gate is 17 mW. The series-terminated transmission-line connection without requiring full logic swing is described.     

GaAs trickle transistor dynamic logic

A GaAs dynamic logic gate is proposed which uses a trickle transistor to compensate for leakage from the precharged node. This trickle transistor dynamic logic (TTDL) circuit is configured as a domino logic gate and a differential cascode voltage switch logic (CVSL) gate. Delay chains were implemented in a 1-μm GaAs enhancement/depletion (E/D) process where the depletion-mode FETs (DFETs) and the enhancement-mode FETs (EFETs) have threshold voltages of -0.6 and 0.15 V, respectively, in order to obtain an experimental characterization of these gates. In addition, the TTDL gates were used to implement a 4-b carry-lookahead adder. The adder has a critical delay of 0.8 ns and a power dissipation of 130 mW     

基于神经网络的逻辑门NBTI退化建模与计算

提出了基于神经网络的逻辑门退化延迟模型。根据逻辑门延迟数据特征,采用神经网络BP算法,对仿真样本数据进行训练,获得7种基本逻辑门延迟退化计算方法以及网络模型参数。基于45 nm CMOS工艺进行验证,模型计算值与Spice仿真数据的误差不超过5%。在此基础上,提出NBTI效应下的电路路径延迟退化计算流程,并编写计算程序,对基本逻辑门构成的任意组合逻辑电路(ISCAS85)进行NBTI退化分析,获得路径时序的NBTI退化量。采用该模型,可在电路设计阶段预测电路时序,为高性能、高可靠性数字集成电路的设计提供重要依据。     

A combined gate replacement and input vector control approach for leakage current reduction

Input vector control (IVC) is a popular technique for leakage power reduction. It utilizes the transistor stack effect in CMOS gates by applying a minimum leakage vector (MLV) to the primary inputs of combinational circuits during the standby mode. However, the IVC technique becomes less effective for circuits of large logic depth because the input vector at primary inputs has little impact on leakage of internal gates at high logic levels. In this paper, we propose a technique to overcome this limitation by replacing those internal gates in their worst leakage states by other library gates while maintaining the circuit's correct functionality during the active mode. This modification of the circuit does not require changes of the design flow, but it opens the door for further leakage reduction when the MLV is not effective. We then present a divide-and-conquer approach that integrates gate replacement, an optimal MLV searching algorithm for tree circuits, and a genetic algorithm to connect the tree circuits. Our experimental results on all the MCNC91 benchmark circuits reveal that 1) the gate replacement technique alone can achieve 10% leakage current reduction over the best known IVC methods with no delay penalty and little area increase; 2) the divide-and-conquer approach outperforms the best pure IVC method by 24% and the existing control point insertion method by 12%; and 3) compared with the leakage achieved by optimal MLV in small circuits, the gate replacement heuristic and the divide-and-conquer approach can reduce on average 13% and 17% leakage, respectively.     

Power–Delay–Area–Noise Margin Tradeoffs in Positive-Feedback MOS Current-Mode Logic

In this paper, positive feedback source-coupled logic (PFSCL) gates are analyzed from a design point of view. The design space is explored through analytical relationships which relate the gate delay, power consumption and noise margin, which are modeled through a simplified circuit analysis. To be more specific, a simple and accurate model of the noise margin is used to derive a systematic design strategy to size the transistors' aspect ratios ensuring an assigned noise margin for a given bias current. From the knowledge of the transistor sizes, the gate delay is then expressed as a function of the bias current and the supply voltage, both of which define the static power consumption of PFSCL gates, as well as of the logic swing, which determines the noise margin. Therefore, this delay model simply relates the speed performance, the power consumption and the noise margin of PFSCL gates, and accounts for the dependence on the fan-in and fan-out. Extensive SPICE simulations with a 0.18-m CMOS process confirm the adequate accuracy of the analytical models and the validity of the approximations introduced to simplify the analysis, and a practical design example of an equality comparator is also presented. In order to derive clear guidelines to manage the delay-power-noise margin tradeoff, PFSCL gates are analyzed in typical design cases (i.e., design for high speed, low power and power efficiency). For the sake of completeness, the effect of each design parameter on the silicon area occupied by a PFSCL gate is also qualitatively analyzed. The resulting criteria are thus useful to design PFSCL gates without resorting to time-consuming design iterations with a trial and error approach based on simulations.     

Efficient algorithm for glitch power reduction [CMOS logiccircuits]

An efficient algorithm is proposed for reducing glitch power dissipation in CMOS logic circuits. The proposed algorithm takes a path balancing approach that is achieved using gate sizing and buffer insertion methods. The gate sizing technique reduces not only glitches but also the effective circuit capacitance. After gate sizing, buffers are inserted into the remaining unbalanced paths which have not been subjected to gate sizing. ILP has been employed to determine the location of inserted buffers. The proposed algorithm has been tested on LGSynth91 benchmark circuits. Experimental results show that 61.5% of glitches are reduced on average     

High-speed and low-power CMOS priority encoders

The design of two high-performance priority encoders is presented. The key techniques for high speed are twofold. First, a multilevel look-ahead structure is developed to shorten the critical path effectively. Second, this look-ahead structure is realized efficiently by the NP Domino CMOS logic, and all the dynamic gates have a parallel-connected circuit structure. For high speed and low power at the same time, the series-connected circuit structure is adopted in the less critical paths to reduce the switching activity, but such a design needs to cascade two n-type dynamic gates directly resulting in the race problem. A special circuit technique is utilized to rescue this problem. Several 32-bit priority encoders are designed to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed techniques. The best new design realizes a three-level look-ahead structure, and it achieves 65% speed improvement, 20% layout area reduction, and 30% power reduction simultaneously as compared to the conventional design with a simple look-ahead structure