Circuit Techniques for Device-Circuit Interaction toward Minimum Energy Operation

Abstract

In the quest of operating a circuit at its minimum energy, both of the design-time and run-time optimizations are being employed aggressively in mobile devices today. This paper overviews some of the energy reduction techniques and highlights the role of device-circuit interaction in achieving minimum energy operation. We show that run-time energy minimization can be achieved by keeping the ratio between static energy and dynamic energy to an optimum value. Focusing on the ease-of-design, we then review several delay-based sensor circuits to monitor transistor performance, leakage-current and temperature. We also discuss activity monitors to estimate the dynamic energy. We then discuss a cell-based design approach for both of the sensing and the back-gate voltage tuning circuits for area and cost reduction. Using the sensing and the voltage tuning circuits, the system can operate at its minimum energy all the time.

Forced stack sleep transistor (FORTRAN): A new leakage current reduction approach in CMOS based circuit designing

“…To minimize power dissipation, many researchers have proposed different ideas from the device level to the architectural level [1]. There are numerous methods discussed to reduce leakage power in CMOS based circuit designing [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Each approach delivers a novel way to reduce leakage power, but the shortcomings of each approach limit the claim of each approach to be the best.…”