International Business Machines Corporation

Harmander Singh Deogun

Jente Benedict Kuang

Hung Cai Ngo

Kevin John Nowka

Robert Matthew Senger

Rahul M Rao

Aj KleinOsowski

Michael Stephen Floyd

Gary Dale Carpenter

Alan J Drake

Norman Karl James

A static pulse bus circuit and method having dynamic power supply rail selection reduces static and dynamic power consumption over that of static pulse bus designs with fixed power supply rail voltages. Every other (even) bus repeater is operated with a selectable power supply rail voltage that is selected in conformity with a state of the input signal of the bus repeater. The odd bus repeaters are operated from the lower of the selectable power supply voltages supplied to the even repeaters. The odd bus repeaters may also be operated from a selectable power supply rail voltage opposite the selectable-voltage power supply rail provided to the even bus repeaters, in which case the opposing rail of the even bus repeaters is set to the higher of the voltages selectable in the odd bus repeaters.

Static pulsed bus circuit and method having dynamic power supply rail selection

A circuit for dynamically monitoring the operation of an integrated circuit under differing temperature, frequency, and voltage (including localized noise and droop), and for detecting early life wear-out mechanisms (e.g., NBTI, hot electrons).

Circuit for dynamic circuit timing synthesis and monitoring of critical paths and environmental conditions of an integrated circuit

A dynamic logic circuit apparatus and method for reducing leakage power consumption via separate clock and output stage control reduces power consumption of processors and other systems incorporating dynamic circuits. The power control signal may be a delayed version of the logic clock and turns on the output inverter foot device after the dynamic node has had sufficient time to evaluate, providing a fast evaluate time and reducing leakage through the inverter input when the foot device is off. Alternatively, a coarsely timed static power control signal may be used to control the inverter foot devices. The drains of the inverter foot devices can be commonly connected across multiple circuits, reducing the foot device total area.

Dynamic logic circuit apparatus and method for reducing leakage power consumption via separate clock and output stage control

A dynamic logic circuit incorporating reduced leakage state-retaining devices reduces power consumption of processors and other systems incorporating dynamic circuits. A keeper circuit provides a low leakage retention of the state of the output stage of the dynamic circuit so that an output circuit foot device can be disabled except when required for a transition in the output of the dynamic circuit. The keeper circuit includes a transistor having a smaller area than a corresponding transistor in the output circuit, thus reducing leakage through the gate of the output circuit when the keeper circuit is holding the output and the output circuit foot device is disabled. A self-clocked control of the output circuit foot device can be provided via a delayed version of the dynamic logic gate output, or may be provided by an external control circuit that generates a delayed version of the precharge clock or a multi-cycle signal.

Dynamic logic circuit incorporating reduced leakage state-retaining devices

A multi-threshold complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (MTCMO) bus circuit reduces bus power consumption via a reduced circuit leakage standby and pulsed control of standby mode so that the advantages of MTCMOS repeater design are realized in dynamic operation. A pulse generator pulses the high-threshold voltage power supply rail standby switching devices in response to changes detected at the bus circuit inputs. The delay penalty associated with leaving the standby mode is overcome by reducing cross-talk induced delay via a cross-talk noise minimization encoding and decoding scheme. A subgroup of bus wires is encoded and decoded, simplifying the encoding, decoding and change detection logic and results in the bus subgroup being taken out of standby mode only when changes occur in one or more of the subgroup inputs, further reducing the power consumption of the overall bus circuit.

Multi-threshold complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (MTCMOS) bus circuit and method for reducing bus power consumption via pulsed standby switching

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Lincoln, NE, United States of America

Harmander Singh Deogun