TY - GEN
T1 - Analyzing and minimizing effects of temperature variation and NBTI on active leakage power of power-gated circuits
AU - Sinkar, Abhishek
AU - Kim, Nam Sung
PY - 2010/5/28
Y1 - 2010/5/28
N2 - Power-gating (PG) techniques have been widely used in modern digital ICs to reduce their standby leakage power during idle periods. Meanwhile, virtual supply voltage (VVDD) of a power-gated IC is a function of strength of a PG device and total current flowing through it. Thus, the VVDD level becomes susceptible to 1) negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) degradation that weakens the PG device over time and 2) temporal temperature variation that affects active leakage current (thus total current) of the IC. To account for the NBTI degradation, the PG device must be upsized such that it guarantees a minimum VVDD level that prevents any timing failure over chip lifetime. Moreover, the PG device is also sized for the worst-case voltage drop partly resulted by a large amount of active leakage current at high temperature. However, increasing the size of the PG device to consider both effects leads to higher VVDD (thus active leakage power) than necessary at low temperature and/or in early chip lifetime. To minimize active leakage power increase due to these effects, we propose two techniques that adjust strength of a PG device based on its usage and IC's temperature at runtime. Both techniques are applied to an experimental setup modeling total current consumption of an IC in 32nm technology and their efficacy is demonstrated in the presence of within-die spatial process and temperature variations. On average of 100 die samples, they can reduce active leakage power by up to 10% in early chip lifetime.
AB - Power-gating (PG) techniques have been widely used in modern digital ICs to reduce their standby leakage power during idle periods. Meanwhile, virtual supply voltage (VVDD) of a power-gated IC is a function of strength of a PG device and total current flowing through it. Thus, the VVDD level becomes susceptible to 1) negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) degradation that weakens the PG device over time and 2) temporal temperature variation that affects active leakage current (thus total current) of the IC. To account for the NBTI degradation, the PG device must be upsized such that it guarantees a minimum VVDD level that prevents any timing failure over chip lifetime. Moreover, the PG device is also sized for the worst-case voltage drop partly resulted by a large amount of active leakage current at high temperature. However, increasing the size of the PG device to consider both effects leads to higher VVDD (thus active leakage power) than necessary at low temperature and/or in early chip lifetime. To minimize active leakage power increase due to these effects, we propose two techniques that adjust strength of a PG device based on its usage and IC's temperature at runtime. Both techniques are applied to an experimental setup modeling total current consumption of an IC in 32nm technology and their efficacy is demonstrated in the presence of within-die spatial process and temperature variations. On average of 100 die samples, they can reduce active leakage power by up to 10% in early chip lifetime.
KW - Active leakage power
KW - Negative bias temperature instability
KW - Power-gating
KW - Process and temperature variations
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U2 - 10.1109/ISQED.2010.5450491
DO - 10.1109/ISQED.2010.5450491
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:77952649866
SN - 9781424464555
T3 - Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design, ISQED 2010
SP - 791
EP - 796
BT - Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design, ISQED 2010
T2 - 11th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design, ISQED 2010
Y2 - 22 March 2010 through 24 March 2010
ER -