Abstract

The reduction of the nominal supply voltage of CMOS technologies with scaling comes with the decrease of the maximum tolerable voltage of the devices. This poses challenges in implementing circuit blocks that are compliant with standardized communication protocols or deal with off-chip signals in voltage domains larger than the nominal supply (e.g., 1.8 V, 3.3 V, 5 V). Design techniques such as cascoding, voltage shifting and adaptive biasing are effective at removing the need for customized voltage resistant input/output (I/O) devices since they prevent intolerable voltage drops. However, at the input of multiple-channel blocks, the design of switches of multiplexers results critical as the input and the output nodes can assume values beyond the signal range, causing harmful biasing configurations. This paper presents the architecture of a switch for input channel multiplexers able to handle signals up to twice the nominal supply voltage of the employed devices. Its effectiveness has been proved by implementing a 1.6V switch with the core MOS transistors of the 28nm CMOS technology with 0.96V nominal supply voltage. The comparison with a benchmark switch based on 1.8V I/O devices showed that both a larger area (slightly more than twice) and static current consumption (40μA) are required.

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.