Sleep switch dual threshold voltage domino logic with reduced subthreshold and gate oxide leakage current

Abstract

A circuit technique is proposed in this paper for simultaneously reducing the subthreshold and gate oxide leakage power consumption in domino logic circuits. PMOS-only sleep transistors and a dual threshold voltage CMOS technology are utilized to place an idle domino logic circuit into a low leakage state. Sleep transistors are added to the dynamic nodes in order to reduce the subthreshold leakage current by strongly turning off all of the high threshold voltage transistors. Similarly, the sleep switches added to the output nodes suppress the voltages across the gate insulating layers of the transistors in the fan-out gates, thereby minimizing the gate tunneling current. The proposed circuit technique lowers the total leakage power by 88 to 97% as compared to the standard dual threshold voltage domino logic circuits. Similarly, a 22 to 44% reduction in the total leakage power is observed as compared to a previously published sleep switch scheme in a 45 nm CMOS technology.