Increasing minimum operating voltage (VDDmin) with number of CMOS logic gates and experimental verification with up to 1Mega-stage ring oscillators

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Taro Niiyama - , Tokyo University of Agriculture (Author)
  • Zhe Piao - , Tokyo University of Agriculture (Author)
  • Koichi Ishida - , Chair of Circuit Design and Network Theory, Tokyo University of Agriculture (Author)
  • Masami Murakata - , Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC) (Author)
  • Makoto Takamiya - , Tokyo University of Agriculture (Author)
  • Takayasu Sakurai - , Tokyo University of Agriculture (Author)

Abstract

In order to explore the feasibility of the large scale subthreshold logic circuits and to clarify the lower limit of supply voltage (VDD) for logic circuits, the dependence of minimum operating voltage (VDDmin) of CMOS logic gates on the number of stages, gate types and gate width is systematically measured with 90-nm CMOS ring oscillators (RO's). The measured average VDDmin of inverter RO's increased from 90 mV to 343 mV when the number of RO stages increased from 11 to 1 Mega, which indicates the difficulty of the VDD scaling in the large scale subthreshold logic circuits. The dependence of VDDmin on the number of stages is calculated with the subthreshold current model with random threshold voltage (VTH) variations and compared with the measured results, which confirm the tendency of the measurement.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceeding of the 13th international symposium on Low power electronics and design (ISLPED '08)
PublisherIEEE
Pages117-122
Number of pages6
ISBN (print)978-1-4244-8634-2
Publication statusPublished - 13 Aug 2008
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

TitleProceeding of the 13th international symposium on Low power electronics and design (ISLPED '08)
Duration11 - 13 August 2008
LocationBangalore, India

External IDs

Scopus 57549091208
ORCID /0000-0002-4152-1203/work/165453401

Keywords

Keywords

  • CMOS logic circuits, Voltage-controlled oscillators, Logic gates, Ring oscillators, Logic circuits, Large-scale systems, Current measurement, Inverters, Subthreshold current, Threshold voltage