Designers developing the low voltage, low power chips that enable small, portable devices, face a very particular set of challenges. This monograph details design techniques for the low power circuitry required by the many miniaturized business and consumer products driving the electronics market.

Low-Power Digital VLSI Design: Circuits and Systems addresses both process technologies and device modeling. Power dissipation in CMOS circuits, several practical circuit examples, and low-power techniques are discussed. Low-voltage issues for digital CMOS and BiCMOS circuits are emphasized. The book also provides an extensive study of advanced CMOS subsystem design. A low-power design methodology is presented with various power minimization techniques at the circuit, logic, architecture and algorithm levels. Features: Low-voltage CMOS device modeling, technology files, design rules Switching activity concept, low-power guidelines to engineering practice Pass-transistor logic families Power dissipation of I/O circuits Multi- and low-VT CMOS logic, static power reduction circuit techniques State of the art design of low-voltage BiCMOS and CMOS circuits Low-power techniques in CMOS SRAMS and DRAMS Low-power on-chip voltage down converter design Numerous advanced CMOS subsystems (e.g. adders, multipliers, data path, memories, regular structures, phase-locked loops) with several design options trading power, delay and area Low-power design methodology, power estimation techniques Power reduction techniques at the logic, architecture and algorithm levels More than 190 circuits explained at the transistor level.

The book provides a comprehensive coverage of different aspects of low power circuit synthesis at various levels of design hierarchy; starting from the layout level to the system level. For a seamless understanding of the subject, basics of MOS circuits has been introduced at transistor, gate and circuit level; followed by various low-power design methodologies, such as supply voltage scaling, switched capacitance minimization techniques and leakage power minimization approaches. The content of this book will prove useful to students, researchers, as well as practicing engineers.

Low Power Design Methodologies presents the first in-depth coverage of all the layers of the design hierarchy, ranging from the technology, circuit, logic and architectural levels, up to the system layer. The book gives insight into the mechanisms of power dissipation in digital circuits and presents state of the art approaches to power reduction. Finally, it introduces a global view of low power design methodologies and how these are being captured in the latest design automation environments. The individual chapters are written by the leading researchers in the area, drawn from both industry and academia. Extensive references are included at the end of each chapter. Audience: A broad introduction for anyone interested in low power design. Can also be used as a text book for an advanced graduate class. A starting point for any aspiring researcher.

This book provides a practical guide for engineers doing low power System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. It covers various aspects of low power design from architectural issues and design techniques to circuit design of power gating switches. In addition to providing a theoretical basis for these techniques, the book addresses the practical issues of implementing them in today's designs with today's tools.

A systematic description of microelectronic device design. Topics range from the basics to low-power and ultralow-voltage designs, subthreshold current reduction, memory subsystem designs for modern DRAMs, and various on-chip supply-voltage conversion techniques. It also covers process and device issues as well as design issues relating to systems, circuits, devices and processes, such as signal-to-noise and redundancy.

Low Power Consumption is one of the critical issues in the performance of small battery-powered handheld devices. Mobile terminals feature an ever increasing number of wireless communication alternatives including GPS, Bluetooth, GSM, 3G, WiFi or DVB-H. Considering that the total power available for each terminal is limited by the relatively slow increase in battery performance expected in the near future, the need for efficient circuits is now critical. This book presents the basic techniques available to design low power RF CMOS analogue circuits. It gives circuit designers a complete guide of alternatives to optimize power consumption and explains the application of these rules in the most common RF building blocks: LNA, mixers and PLLs. It is set out using practical examples and offers a unique perspective as it targets designers working within the standard CMOS process and all the limitations inherent in these technologies.

This self-contained book addresses the need for analysis, characterization, estimation, and optimization of the various forms of power dissipation in the presence of process variations of nano-CMOS technologies. The authors show very large-scale integration (VLSI) researchers and engineers how to minimize the different types of power consumption of digital circuits. The material deals primarily with high-level (architectural or behavioral) energy dissipation.

The latest techniques for designing robust, high performance integrated circuits in nanoscale technologies Focusing on a new technological paradigm, this practical guide describes the interconnect-centric design methodologies that are now the major focus of nanoscale integrated circuits (ICs). High Performance Integrated Circuit Design begins by discussing the dominant role of on-chip interconnects and provides an overview of technology scaling. The book goes on to cover data signaling, power management, synchronization, and substrate-aware design. Specific design constraints and methodologies unique to each type of interconnect are addressed. This comprehensive volume also explains the design of specialized circuits such as tapered buffers and repeaters for data signaling, voltage regulators for power management, and phase-locked loops for synchronization. This is an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and engineers working in the area of high performance ICs. Coverage includes: Technology scaling Interconnect modeling and extraction Signal propagation and delay analysis Interconnect coupling noise Global signaling Power generation Power distribution networks CAD of power networks Techniques to reduce power supply noise Power dissipation Synchronization theory and tradeoffs Synchronous system characteristics On-chip clock generation and distribution Substrate noise in mixed-signal ICs Techniques to reduce substrate noise

Managing the power consumption of circuits and systems is now considered one of the most important challenges for the semiconductor industry. Elaborate power management strategies, such as dynamic voltage scaling, clock gating or power gating techniques, are used today to control the power dissipation during functional operation. The usage of these strategies has various implications on manufacturing test, and power-aware test is therefore increasingly becoming a major consideration during design-for-test and test preparation for low power devices. This book explores existing solutions for power-aware test and design-for-test of conventional circuits and systems, and surveys test strategies and EDA solutions for testing low power devices.