Wide temperature spectrum low leakage dynamic circuit technique for sub-65nm CMOS technologies

Abstract

A new circuit technique is proposed in this paper for simultaneously reducing the subthreshold and gate oxide leakage power in domino logic circuits. PMOS-only sleep transistors are utilized along with a dual threshold voltage CMOS technology to place an idle domino circuit into a low leakage state. The effectiveness of the circuit technique is evaluated for a wide-temperature spectrum, considering both long and short idle periods. Assuming a short idle period at a temperature of 110/spl deg/C, up to 95.6% reduction in leakage power is observed as compared to standard dual threshold voltage domino circuits. Alternatively, assuming a long idle period at the room temperature, the circuit technique reduces the leakage power by up to 96.9% as compared to the standard dual threshold voltage domino logic circuits. Furthermore, by employing PMOS-only sleep transistors, the presented circuit technique reduces the total leakage power by up to 43.8% as compared to a previously published sleep scheme based on NMOS sleep transistors in a 45nm CMOS technology.