An adaptive on-chip voltage regulation technique for low-power applications

ABSTRACT

In this paper we present a completely on-chip voltage regulation technique which promises to adjust the degree of voltage regulation in a digital logic chip in the face of process induced delay variations so as to minimize energy dissipation while always guaranteeing the target operatingfrequency. For this purpose the delay of a critical path replica of the circuit being regulated is constantly compared with the target delay provide the regulator with the information needed to select the optimum voltage levels. The proposed solution is even more attractive in that no external components are required. Based on this scheme, a completely on-chip voltage regulator has been fabricated in a commercial 0.5&mgr;m CMOS process and used to generate the inner rail voltages for a DSP multiplier-accumulator (MAC) implemented in mixed swing QuadRail. Measured results indicate that the voltages generated by the regulator offer a very high degree of load regulation thus verifying the fast response time of the on-chip output buffer.

REFERENCES

• 1: L. Richard Carley , Akshay Aggarwal, A completey on-chip voltage regulation technique for low power digital circuits, Proceedings of the 1999 international symposium on Low power electronics and design, p.109-111, August 16-17, 1999, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/313817.313885]
• 2: L. Richard Carley , Akshay Aggarwal , Ram K. Krishnamurthy, Decreasing low-voltage manufacturing-induced delay variations with adaptive mixed-voltage-swing circuits, Proceedings of the 1998 international symposium on Low power electronics and design, p.106-108, August 10-12, 1998, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/280756.280812]
• 3: R.K.Krishnamurthy, H. Schmit, and L.R.Carley, "A Low-power 16-bit MAC using Series-Regulated Mixed-Swing Techniques,' CICC, May 1998.
• 4: L.R.Carley, "QuadRail: A Design Methodology for Ultra Low Power Integrated Circuits,' Proc. IEEE IWLPD, April 1994.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.6 LOGIC DESIGN

  J. Computer Applications
  J.2 PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING
      Subjects: Physics

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Performance