Ground bounce reduction in power gating circuits using input vector control

Abstract

Power gating is one of the most effective ways to reduce leakage power by shutting off the idle blocks in a system-on-a-chip. However, a current surge occurs when the gated blocks wake up from sleep mode, causing voltage fluctuations on the power rails, which is called ground bounce effect. In this paper, input vector control method is used to reduce the ground bounce. Genetic algorithm is applied to generate the proper input vector. Simulation results show that by selecting input vector properly, the maximum voltage fluctuation induced by ground bounce can be reduced by 28% at most on the benchmark circuits.