Low-power FPGA architecture is proposed based on fine-grained V DD control scheme called micro-V DD -hopping. Four Configurable Logic Blocks (CLB) are grouped into one block where V DD is shared. In the micro-V DD -hopping scheme, V DD of each block is varied between the higher V DD (V DDH ) and the lower V DD (V DDL ) spatially and temporally to achieve lower power, while keeping performance undegraded. A level shifter that has less contention is proposed. The FPGA also incorporates Zigzag power-gating scheme, special care has been taken to cope with sneak leakage path problem. The proposed FPGA is fabricated using 0.35µm CMOS technology together with the conventional fixed-V DD FPGA. Measurement shows that the dynamic power can be reduced by 86% when the required speed is half of the highest speed.Simulation using 90nm CMOS technology shows that a leakage power reduction of 95% can be achieved, when the proposed method is used. Area overhead of the proposed FPGA is 2%.
A low-power FPGA design approach is proposed based on a fine-grain V DD control scheme called micro-V DD-hopping. Four configurable logic blocks (CLBs) are grouped into one block where V DD is shared. In the micro-V DD-hopping scheme, V DD in each block is changed between V DDH (high V DD) and V DDL (low V DD) spatially and temporally in order to achieve lower power without performance degraded. A low-power level shifter that has less contention is also proposed for lowswing inter-block signals. The FPGA incorporates the Zigzag power-gating scheme, in which special care has been taken to cope with a sneak leakagepath problem. A test chip was fabricated using a 0.35-µm CMOS technology, together with the conventional fixed-V DD FPGA for comparison. Measurement results show that dynamic power in the proposed scheme can be reduced by 86% when a frequency is half of the maximum one. Simulation using a 90-nm CMOS technology shows that leakage power can be reduced by 97%, when the proposed method is used. The area overhead of the proposed FPGA is 2%.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.