Adaptive Delay Correction for Runtime Variation in Dynamic voltage Scaling Systems

Temperature and voltage fluctuations affect delay sensitivity differently, as supply voltage is reduced. These differences make runtime variations particularly difficult to manage in dynamic voltage scaling systems, which adjust supply voltage in accordance with the required operating frequency. To include process variation in current table-lookup methods, a worst-case process is typically assumed. We propose a new method that takes process variation into account and reduces the excessive runtime variation guardbands. Our approach uses a ring oscillator to generate baseline frequencies, and employs a guardband lookup table to offset this baseline. The new method ensures robust operation and reduces power consumption by up to 20% compared with a method that assumes worst-case process variation in filling a lookup table.

[1]  A.P. Chandrakasan,et al.  Standby power reduction using dynamic voltage scaling and canary flip-flop structures , 2004, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[2]  Niccolò Rinaldi,et al.  On the modeling of the transient thermal behavior of semiconductor devices , 2001 .

[3]  T. Rahal-Arabi,et al.  On-die droop detector for analog sensing of power supply noise , 2004, 2003 Symposium on VLSI Circuits. Digest of Technical Papers (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37408).

[4]  I. Filanovsky,et al.  Mutual compensation of mobility and threshold voltage temperature effects with applications in CMOS circuits , 2001 .

[5]  Stephan Henzler,et al.  In-Situ Delay Characterization and Local Supply Voltage Adjustment for Compensation of Local Parametric Variations , 2007, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[6]  Gang Ji,et al.  Design and validation of a power supply noise reduction technique , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Advanced Packaging.

[7]  A.P. Chandrakasan,et al.  A 175 mV multiply-accumulate unit using an adaptive supply voltage and body bias (ASB) architecture , 2002, 2002 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.02CH37315).

[8]  T. Chen,et al.  Comparison of adaptive body bias (ABB) and adaptive supply voltage (ASV) for improving delay and leakage under the presence of process variation , 2003, IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integr. Syst..

[9]  A.P. Chandrakasan,et al.  Ultra-dynamic Voltage scaling (UDVS) using sub-threshold operation and local Voltage dithering , 2006, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[10]  Sanjay Pant,et al.  A self-tuning DVS processor using delay-error detection and correction , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[11]  O. Semenov,et al.  Impact of self-heating effect on long-term reliability and performance degradation in CMOS circuits , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability.

[12]  G. Ono,et al.  A 1000-MIPS/W microprocessor using speed adaptive threshold-voltage CMOS with forward bias , 2000, 2000 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.00CH37056).

[13]  David Blaauw,et al.  Ultralow-voltage, minimum-energy CMOS , 2006, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[14]  Isamu Hayashi,et al.  An On-Chip Supply-Voltage Control System Considering PVT Variations for Worst-Caseless Lower Voltage SoC Design , 2006, IEICE Trans. Electron..

[15]  Kiyoo Itoh,et al.  Supply voltage scaling for temperature insensitive CMOS circuit operation , 1998 .

[16]  Manoj Sachdev,et al.  Variation-Aware Adaptive Voltage Scaling System , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems.

[17]  J. Tschanz,et al.  Effectiveness of adaptive supply voltage and body bias for reducing impact of parameter variations in low power and high performance microprocessors , 2002, 2002 Symposium on VLSI Circuits. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.02CH37302).