Power analysis of resonant clocks

Resonant clocks are new design techniques for multi-gigahertz clock distributions that are gaining prominence in the design of low power and ultrahigh frequency microprocessors. In the radiofrequency range, new challenges with respect to skews and jitters become greatly pronounced rendering many conventional clocking techniques inadequate. In this work, we present a comparative study of the power dissipation of three resonant clocking techniques: standing wave, rotary wave and dasiaresonant-loadpsila global clock distributions. Specifically, we generated non-overlapping clock signals resonantly to drive transmission gates in the design of our new binary counter. We used a simplified Sunpsilas SwaP Metric to determine the power efficiency of each resonant technique. All of our designs were simulated using Agilent ADS 2006A. Furthermore, our analysis has revealed that the rotary clock design can achieve a power efficiency of a magnitude of two compared to the other resonant clock techniques.

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