Low-power electronics design

840 Pages·2005·40.369 MB·English

by  Christian Piguet

Low-Power
Electronics Design
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
Computer Engineering Series
Series Editor: Vojin Oklobdzija
Low Power Electronics Design
Edited by Christian Piguet
Digital Image Sequence Processing,
Compression, and Analysis
Edited by Todd R. Reed
Coding and Signal Processing for
Magnetic Recording Systems
Edited by Bane Vasic and Erozan Kurtas
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
Low-Power
Electronics Design
Edited by
Christian Piguet
CSEM&LAP-EPFL
Switzerland
CRC PR ESS
Boca Raton London New York Washington, D.C.
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
1941_C00.fm Page iv Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Low-power electronics design / edited by Christian Piguet.
p. cm. — (Computer engineering ; 1)
ISBN 0-8493-1941-2
1. Low voltage integrated circuits—Design and construction. 2. Low voltage systems—
Design and construction. I. Piguet, Christian. II. Title. III. Series: Computer
engineering (CRC Press); 1
TK7874.66.L65 2004
621.381—dc22 2004045729
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International Standard Book Number 0-8493-1941-2
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Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
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Preface
Purpose and Background
The goal of this book is to cover all the main aspects of low-power design of integrated circuits (ICs) in
deep submicron technologies. Today, the power consumption of ICs is considered as one of the most
important problems for high-performance chips as well as for portable devices. For the latter, it is due
to the limited cell battery lifetime, while it is the chip cooling for the first case. As a result, for any chip
design, power consumption should be taken into account very seriously.
Before 1993–1994, only speed and silicon area were important in the design of integrated circuits, and
power consumption was not an issue. Just after, it was recognized that power consumption has to be
taken into account as a main design parameter. Many papers and books were written to describe all the
first design methodologies to save power limited to circuit design. Today, however, we have to cope with
many new problems implied by very deep submicron technologies, systems on chips, embedded software,
and the future of microelectronics. This book not only covers the aspects of all low-power designs, but
it will also include new topics mainly related to future designs (i.e., nanotechnologies, optical chips,
systems on chips, embedded software, and energy sources).
The design of more than 1 billion transistor chips, down to 0.10 mm and below, supplied at less than
half a volt but working at some GHz, is a very challenging task, certainly considered as an impossible task
only a few years ago. The design of such chips seem miraculous, but, as pointed out by Thomas Edison:
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison, LIFE Magazine, 1932
Organization
Many “low-power” techniques have been proposed during the last 10 years. Today, the power consump-
tion of integrated circuits and of systems on chips is considered one of the most important problems for
high-performance chips as well as for portable devices. Written by authors who are specialists in their
respective fields, this book covers most of the low-power design techniques used today along with their
results, as well as an interesting look into the future, including the serious problems due to the new deep
submicron or nanometric technologies. As listed in the table of contents, the book contains seven sections:
1. Metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices and technologies
2. Logic circuits
3. Processors and memories
4. Systems on chips
5. Embedded software
6. Computer-aided design (CAD) tools
7. Energy sources
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
1941_C00.fm Page vi Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
In this way, many different domains and disciplines (i.e., technologies, circuit design, processors, complex
circuits, software, CAD tools, and energy sources and management) are covered to give the reader a
complete picture of what impacts power consumption.
This book also describes what many specialists think about the future, by presenting, for instance,
nanotechnologies, optical circuits, ad hoc networks, e-textiles, and human powered sources of energy —
all techniques that are promising but not really used today. The key benefits for the reader will not only
be this complete picture of today’s methods for reducing power, with some spectacular results, but also
a serious look into the future to be fully aware of advances in chip design 10 or 15 years from now.
Locating Your Topic
Several avenues are available to access the desired information. A complete table of contents is presented
at the front of the book. Each chapter is also preceded with an individual table of contents. Each
contributed chapter contains comprehensive references including books, journal and magazine articles,
and sometimes Web sites.
Acknowledgments
The value of this book is completely based on the many excellent contributions of experts. I am very
grateful to them because they spent so much time writing excellent texts without any compensation.
Their sole motivation was to provide readers and students who are interested in low-power design with
excellent contributions about this topic. I sincerely thank all these authors. I am indebted to Professor
Vojin G. Oklobjzija for asking me to edit this book and trusting me with this project. I sincerely thank
Nora Konopka, Jamie Sigal, and Marsha Hecht of CRC Press for their excellent work in putting all this
material in its present form.
Christian Piguet
Editor-in-Chief
CSEM SA
Jaquet-Droz 1
2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
[email protected]
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
1941_C00.fm Page vii Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
Editor-in-Chief
Christian Piguet was born in Nyon, Switzerland, on January 18, 1951.
He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974 and
1981, respectively.
Dr. Piguet joined the Centre Electronique Horloger S.A., Neuchâtel,
Switzerland, in 1974. He worked on CMOS digital integrated circuits
for the watch industry, on low-power embedded microprocessors, as
well as on computer-aided design (CAD) tools based on a gate matrix
approach. He is now head of the ultra-low-power sector at the Centre
Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) S.A., Neuchâtel,
Switzerland. He is presently involved in the design and management of
low-power and high-speed integrated circuits in CMOS technology. His
main interests include the design of very low-power microprocessors and Digital Signal Processors (DSPs),
low-power standard cell libraries, gated clock and low-power techniques, as well as asynchronous design.
He is a professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He also lectures
on VLSI and microprocessor design at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and in the Advanced
Learning and Research Institute (ALaRI) masters program at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. He
is also a lecturer for many postgraduate courses in low-power design.
Christian Piguet holds about 32 patents in digital design, microprocessors, and watch systems. He has
authored and coauthored more than 150 articles and chapters in various technical journals and books
on low-power digital design. He has served as reviewer for many technical journals. He also served as
guest editor for the July 1996 issue of Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC). He is a member of the steering
and program committees for numerous conferences and has served as program chairman of PATMOS
’95 in Oldenburg, Germany, cochairman at FTFC ’99 in Paris, Chairman of the ACiD 2001 Workshop
in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, co-chair of VLSI-SOC 2001 in Montpellier, and co-chair of ISLPED 2002 in
Monterey. He was chairman of the PATMOS executive committee during 2002. At DATE 2004, he was
the low-power topic chair.
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
1941_C00.fm Page ix Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
Contributors
Amit Agarwal Youcef Bouchebaba
Purdue University University of Nantes
West Lafayette, Indiana Nantes, France
Amara Amara Aimen Bouechhima
ISEP TIMA Laboratory
Paris, France Grenoble, France
Claude Arm
Erik Brockmeyer
CSEM
IMEC
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Leuven, Belgium
Daniel Auvergne
Francky Catthoor
LIRMM, University of Montpellier
IMEC
Montpellier, France
Leuven, Belgium
and
Nadine Azémard
Katholiek University
LIRMM, University of Montpellier
Leuven, Belgium
Montpellier, France
Wander Cesario
Marc Belleville
TIMA Laboratory
CEA-LETI
Grenoble, France
Grenoble, France
Luca Benini Yuen Hui Chee
University of Bologna University of California-Berkeley
Bologna, Italy Berkeley, California
Davide Bertozzi Lawrence T. Clark
University of Bologna Arizona State University
Bologna, Italy Tempe, Arizona
Didier Bloch Fabien Coelho
CEA-LETI-DIHS Ecole des Mines
Grenoble, France Paris, France
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
1941_C00.fm Page x Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
Stefan Cserveny Simone Gambini
CSEM Universita di Pisa
Neuchâtel, Switzerland Pisa, Italy
Raphaël David Lovic Gauthier
ENSSAT/University of Rennes Fleets
Lannion, France Fukuoka, Japan
Vivek De Catherine H. Gebotys
Intel Labs University of Waterloo
Santa Clara, California Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Peter Dytrych Cedric Ghez
Philips Digital Systems Laboratories IMEC
Leuven, Belgium Leuven, Belgium
Olivier Faynot Dimitris Gizopoulos
CEA-LETI University of Piraeus
Grenoble, France Piraeus, Greece
Antoni Ferré Gert Goossens
UPC Target Compilers Technologies
Barcelona, Spain Leuven, Belgium
Laurent Fesquet Domenik Helms
TIMA Laboratory OFFIS
Grenoble, France Oldenburg, Germany
Joan Figueras Ed Huijbregts
UPC Magma Design Automation
Barcelona, Spain Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Joao Fragoso Koji Inoue
TIMA Laboratory Fukuoka University
Grenoble, France Fukuoka, Japan
Jerry Frenkil Ahmed A. Jerraya
Sequence Design TIMA Laboratory
Santa Clara, California Grenoble, France
Frédéric Gaffiot Pradeep K. Khosla
Ecole Centrale de Lyon Carnegie Mellon University
Lyon, France Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press
1941_C00.fm Page xi Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
Chris H. Kim Diana Marculescu
Purdue University Carnegie Mellon University
West Lafayette, Indiana Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Ulrich Kremer Radu Marculescu
Rutgers University Carnegie Mellon University
Piscataway, New Jersey Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Lars Kruse Jean-Marc Masgonty
Magma Design Automation CSEM
Eindhoven, The Netherlands Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Chidamber Kulkarni Philippe Maurine
University of California-Berkeley LIRMM, University of Montpellier
Berkeley, California Montpellier, France
Dirk Lanneer
Tycho van Meeuwen
Philips Digital Systems Laboratories
IMEC
Leuven, Belgium
Leuven, Belgium
Dake Liu
Renu Mehra
Department of Electrical Engineering
Synopsys Inc.
Linköping University
Mountain View, California
Linköping, Sweden
Giovanni De Micheli
Richard Lu
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
Stanford, California
Berkeley, California
Miguel Miranda
Mark Lundstrom
IMEC
Purdue University
Leuven, Belgium
West Lafayette, Indiana
Vasily G. Moshnyaga
Alberto Macii
Fukuoka University
Politecnico di Torino
Fukuoka, Japan
Torino, Italy
Enrico Macii Wolfgang Nebel
Politecnico di Torino Oldenburg University
Torino, Italy Oldenburg, Germany
Morteza Maleki Ian O’Connor
University of Southern California Ecole Centrale de Lyon
Los Angeles, California Lyon, France
Copyright 2005 by CRC Press