A High-Speed Variation-Tolerant Interconnect Technique for Sub-Threshold Circuits Using Capacitive Boosting |
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Authors: | Jonggab Kil Jie Gu Kim CH |
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Affiliation: | Intel Corp., Folsom; |
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Abstract: | This paper describes an interconnect technique for subthreshold circuits to improve global wire delay and reduce the delay variation due to process-voltage-temperature (PVT) fluctuations. By internally boosting the gate voltage of the driver transistors, operating region is shifted from subthreshold region to super-threshold region enhancing performance and improving tolerance to PVT variations. Simulations of a clock distribution network using the proposed driver shows a 66%-76% reduction in 3sigma clock skew value and 84%-88% reduction in clock tree delay compared to using conventional drivers. A 0.4-V test chip has been fabricated in a 0.18-mum 6-metal CMOS process to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Measurement results show 2.6times faster switching speed and 2.4times less delay sensitivity under temperature variations. |
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