VLSI–II
Review of scaling
Summary
cpu
pwr mem
i/o
Review of scaling
Summary
Review of scaling
Summary
Td = kCV/I
= kCV/(Vdd-Vt)α
Consistent with
C.F. Scaling
period (ns)
20 cycle in FO4
50
15 Period
40
30 10
20
5
10
0 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1
EE382M VLSI-II Class Notes technologyFoil # 12 The University of Texas at Austin
Dynamic Energy
∞ ∞
dVout
EVdd = ∫ iVdd (t )Vdddt = Vdd ∫ CL dt
t =0 0
dt
Vdd iVdd
EVdd = C LVdd ∫ = 2
dVout C LVdd Vout
Vout = 0
∞ ∞ CL
dV
Ec = ∫ iCL (t )Vout dt = ∫ C L out Vout dt
t =0 0
dt
Vdd
1
∫
2
Ec = C L Vout dVout = C V
L dd
Vout = 0
2
Energy dissipated for either output transition consumes:
½ CL Vdd2
1.5
Expected HP MP power
300
ITRS’01
250
Power (W)
200
Energy.Delay^2
Metric
10
Energy.Delay
Delay
Energy
1
0 2 4 6 8 10
Multiplier k
PowerPC 405LP measurements: 18:1 power range over 4:1 frequency range
400 400
Power (mW)
300 300
200 200
100 100
After Nowka,
0 0 et.al. ISSCC, Feb ‘02
1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
Supply Voltage (V)
Freq
Scaling
Plus DVS
Review of scaling
Summary
1000
100
1994 2005
0.001
1 0.1 0.01
Gate Length (microns)
Src: Nowak, et al
• Reduction techniques:
High-k material
100
Power (nW)
50
0
160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20
Technology
1.5
0.5
0
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
Logic Voltage(V)
Subthreshold dominated technology
After Nowka, et.al. ISSCC ‘02
B
B Standby
A headers/
Xb A footers
A B Xb
A B
X Xb X Xb
Low Hi
threshold/ threshold/
Thin oxide Thicker
oxide
• Low Vt devices on critical paths, rest high Vt
• 70-180mV higher Vt, 10-100x lower leakage, 5-20% slower
• Small fraction of devices low-Vt (1-5%)
• Thick oxide reduces gate leakage by orders of magnitude
Xb
X Xb X
Stacked
devices
• Design tradeoff:
– Performance => High supply, low threshold
– Active Power => Low supply, low threshold
– Standby => Low supply, high threshold
• Static
– Stack effect – minimizing subthreshold thru single fet paths
– Multiple thresholds: High Vt and Low Vt transistors
– Multiple supplies: high and low Vdd
• Design tradeoff:
– Performance => High supply, low threshold
– Active Power => Low supply, low threshold
– Standby => Low supply, high threshold
• Static
– Stack effect – minimizing subthreshold thru single fet paths
– Multiple thresholds: High Vt and Low Vt Transistors
– Multiple supplies: high and low Vdd
– Problem: optimum (Vdd,Vt) changes over time, across dice
3.3V
GP
GN
Vbp 1.8V
VDD 1.8V
Switch Switch
Cell 1.8V Cell
Logic
GND 0V
Vbn 0V
-1.5V
VDD+VB
Vbp VDD
uP Core
VDD VDD
Leakpfet
VB
Leaknfet
VSS 0V
GND 0V
Review of scaling
Summary
– supporting low V,
– supporting power-down modes,
– choosing the right mix of Vt,
– sizing devices appropriately
– E. Vittoz, “Low-power design: ways to approach the limits” IEEE International Solid
State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers, pp. 14-18, 1994.
– M. Horowitz, T. Indermaur, R. Gonzalez, “Low-power digital design” IEEE Symposium
on Low Power Electronics Digest of Technical Papers, pp. 8-11, 1994.
– R. Gonzalez, B. Gordon, M. Horowitz, “Supply and threshold voltage scaling for low
power CMOS” IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, v. 32, no. 8, pp. 1210-1216, August
2000.
– T. Burd and R. Brodersen, “Energy efficient CMOS microprocessor design ”
Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences, v. 1, pp. 288-297, 466, 1995.
– K. Suzuki, S. Mita, T. Fujita, F. Yamane, F. Sano, A. Chiba, Y. Watanabe, K. Matsuda, T.
Maeda, T. Kuroda, “A 300 MIPS/W RISC core processor with variable supply-voltage
scheme in variable threshold-voltage CMOS” Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on
Custom Integrated Circuits Conference, pp. 587 –590, 1997
– T. Kuroda, K. Suzuki, S. Mita, T. Fujita, F. Yamane, F. Sano, A. Chiba, Y. Watanabe, K.
Matsuda, T. Maeda, T. Sakurai, T. Furuyama, “Variable supply-voltage scheme for low-
power high-speed CMOS digital design” IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, v. 33, no.
3, pp. 454-462, March 1998.
– T. Burd, T. Pering, A. Stratakos, R. Brodersen, “A dynamic voltage scaled
microprocessor system ” IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference Digest of
Technical Papers, pp. 294-295, 466, 2000.