• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.3 s.345
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• pp.21-32
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• 2006

A new SRAM circuit with row-by-row activation and low-swing write schemes is proposed to reduce switching power of active cells as well as leakage one of sleep cells in this paper. By driving source line of sleep cells by $V_{SSH}$ which is higher than $V_{SS}$, the leakage current can be reduced to 1/100 due to the cooperation of the reverse body-bias. Drain Induced Barrier Lowering (DIBL), and negative $V_{GS}$ effects. Moreover, the bit line leakage which may introduce a fault during the read operation can be eliminated in this new SRAM. Swing voltage on highly capacitive bit lines is reduced to $V_{DD}-to-V_{SSH}$ from the conventional $V_{DD}-to-V_{SS}$ during the write operation, greatly saving the bit line switching power. Combining the row-by-row activation scheme with the low-swing write does not require the additional area penalty. By the SPICE simulation with the Berkeley Predictive Technology Modes, 93% of leakage power and 43% of switching one are estimated to be saved in future leakage-dominant 70-un process. A test chip has been fabricated using $0.35-{\mu}m$ CMOS process to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the new SRAM, where the switching power is measured to be 30% less than the conventional SRAM when the I/O bit width is only 8. The stored data is confirmed to be retained without loss until the retention voltage is reduced to 1.1V which is mainly due to the metal shield. The switching power will be expected to be more significant with increasing the I/O bit width.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.42 no.8 s.338
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• pp.35-42
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• 2005

This paper describes novel flip-flops with improved robustness and reduced power consumption. Variable sampling window flip-flop (VSWFF) adjusts the width of the sampling window according to input data, providing robust data latching as well as shorter hold time. The flip-flop also reduces power consumption for higher input switching activities as compared to the conventional low-power flip-flop. Clock swing-reduced variable sampling window flip-flop (CSR-VSWFF) reduces clock power consumption by allowing the use of a small swing clock. Unlike conventional reduced clock swing flip-flops, it requires no additional voltage higher than the supply voltage, eliminating design overhead related to the generation and distribution of this voltage. Simulation results indicate that the proposed flip-flops provide uniform latency for narrower sampling window and improved power-delay product as compared to conventional flip-flops. To evaluate the performance of the proposed flip-flops, test structures were designed and implemented in a $0.3\mu m$ CMOS process technology. Experimental result indicates that VSWFF yields power reduction for the maximum input switching activity, and a synchronous counter designed with CSR-VSWFF improves performance in terms of power consumption with no use of extra voltage higher than the supply voltage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.26-36
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• 2008

Due to the differential and low voltage swing, Low Voltage Differential Signaling(LVDS) has been widely used for high speed data transmission with low power consumption. This paper proposes new LVDS I/O interface circuits for more than 1.3 Gb/s operation. The LVDS receiver proposed in this paper utilizes a sense amp for the pre-amp instead of a conventional differential pre-amp. The proposed LVDS allows more than 1.3 Gb/s transmission speed with significantly reduced driver output voltage. Also, in order to further improve the power consumption and noise performance, this paper introduces an inductance impedance matching technique which can eliminate the termination resistor. A new form of unfolded impedance matching method has been developed to accomplish the impedance matching for LVDS receivers with a sense amplifier as well as with a differential amplifier. The proposed LVDS I/O circuits have been extensively simulated using HSPICE based on 0.35um TSMC CMOS technology. The simulation results show improved power gain and transmission rate by ${\sim}12%$ and ${\sim}18%$, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.7
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• pp.122-130
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• 2013

This work proposes a 12b 100MS/s 45nm CMOS four-step pipeline ADC for high-speed digital communication systems requiring high resolution, low power, and small size. The input SHA employs a gate-bootstrapping circuit to sample wide-band input signals with an accuracy of 12 bits or more. The input SHA and MDACs adopt two-stage op-amps with a gain-boosting technique to achieve the required DC gain and high signal swing range. In addition, cascode and Miller frequency-compensation techniques are selectively used for wide bandwidth and stable signal settling. The cascode current mirror minimizes current mismatch by channel length modulation and supply variation. The finger width of current mirrors and amplifiers is laid out in the same size to reduce device mismatch. The proposed supply- and temperature-insensitive current and voltage references are implemented on chip with optional off-chip reference voltages for various system applications. The prototype ADC in a 45nm CMOS demonstrates the measured DNL and INL within 0.88LSB and 1.46LSB, respectively. The ADC shows a maximum SNDR of 61.0dB and a maximum SFDR of 74.9dB at 100MS/s, respectively. The ADC with an active die area of $0.43mm^2$ consumes 29.8mW at 100MS/s and a 1.1V supply.