Spring 2010, Mar 10ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)1 ELEC 7770 Advanced VLSI Design Spring 2010 Gate Sizing Vishwani D. Agrawal James J. Danaher Professor ECE Department, Auburn University Auburn, AL
Clock Distribution clock Spring 2010, Mar 102ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Clock Power P clk = C L V DD 2 f + C L V DD 2 f / λ + C L V DD 2 f / λ stages – 1 1 = C L V DD 2 f Σ─ n= 0 λ n where C L =total load capacitance λ =constant fanout at each stage in distribution network Clock consumes about 40% of total processor power. Spring 2010, Mar 103ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Delay of a CMOS Gate CMOS gate CLCL CgCg C int Propagation delay through the gate: t p = 0.69 R eq (C int + C L ) ≈ 0.69 R eq C g (1 + C L /C g ) = t p0 (1 + C L /C g ) Gate capacitance Intrinsic capacitance Spring 2010, Mar 104ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
R eq, C g, C int, and Width Sizing R eq : equivalent resistance of “on” transistor, proportional to L/W; scales as 1/S, S = sizing factor C g : gate capacitance, proportional to C ox WL; scales as S C int : intrinsic output capacitance ≈ C g, for submicron processes t p0 : intrinsic delay = 0.69R eq C g ; independent of sizing Spring 2010, Mar 105ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Effective Fan-out, f Effective fan-out is defined as the ratio between the external load capacitance and the input capacitance: f=C L /C g t p =t p0 (1 + f ) Spring 2010, Mar 106ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Sizing an Inverter Chain Cg1Cg1 Cg2Cg2 CLCL 12N C g2 = f2C g1 t p1 = t p0 (1 + C g2 /C g1 ) t p2 = t p0 (1 + C g3 /C g2 )N t p =Σ t pj =t p0 Σ (1 + C gj+1 /C gj ) j=1j=1 Spring 2010, Mar 107ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Minimum Delay Sizing Equate partial derivatives of t p with respect to C gj to 0: 1/C g1 – C g3 /C g2 2 = 0, etc. or C g2 2 = C g1 ×C g3, etc. i.e., gate capacitance is geometric mean of forward and backward gate capacitances. Also, C g2 /C g1 = C g3 /C g2, etc. i.e., all stages are sized up by the same factor f with respect to the preceding stage: C L /C g1 = F = f N, t p = Nt p0 (1 + F 1/N ) Spring 2010, Mar 108ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Minimum Delay Sizing Equate partial derivatives of t p with respect to N to 0: dNt p0 (1 + F 1/N ) ───────── = 0 dN i.e., F 1/N – F 1/N (ln F)/N = 0 or ln f = 1 → f = e = 2.7 and N = ln F Spring 2010, Mar 109ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Sizing for Energy Minimization Main idea: For a given circuit, reduce energy consumption by reducing the supply voltage. This will increase delay. Compensate the delay increase by transistor sizing. Ref: J. M. Rabaey, A. Chandrakasan and B. Nikolić, Digital Integrated Circuits, Second Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2003, Section 5.4. Spring 2010, Mar 1010ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)
Summary Device sizing combined with supply voltage reduction reduces energy consumption. For large fan-out energy reduction by a factor of 10 is possible. An exception is F = 1 case, where the minimum size device is also the most effective one. Oversizing the devices increases energy consumption. Spring 2010, Mar 1011ELEC 7770: Advanced VLSI Design (Agrawal)