The Hidden Behavior of a D-Latch

For clock and data transitions in close temporal proximity, synchronous memory elements potentially enter metastability, which leads to unintended output behavior. Although respective analyses in literature have already derived suitable explanations, almost all of them modeled the control (clock) signal transition with negligible rise/fall time. In modern circuits this assumption is, however, not reasonable any more. In fact, due to a finite slope, intermediate clock signal values have to be considered during a large share of the storage process, while their concrete impact is not yet sufficiently explored. In this paper we thus use static and dynamic considerations to thoroughly investigate the behavior of a latch for arbitrary analog control, data and output values, i.e., during the storage process. Basic circuit considerations allow us to derive a unified model which identifies the latch as a Schmitt Trigger with vastly varying hysteresis. We verify the correctness of our predictions by comparison to analog SPICE simulations. Finally we are able to generalize our findings and thus provide explanations for yet unexplained behavior reported in literature.