A Nano-Electro-Mechanical Switch Based Power Gating for Effective Stand-by Power Reduction in FinFET Technologies

In this letter, we show that using the experimentally demonstrated nano-electro-mechanical-switches (NEMS) and our design methodology, the standby power dissipation can be reduced to negligible levels in 14-nm bulk FinFET technologies. Using two realistic NEMS structures, demonstrated in the literature for power gating applications, a design window is derived for achieving the targeted specifications without compromising on the performance and area. Cantilever NEMS requires less area as compared with the suspended NEMS, but reliability is a concern. We demonstrate that for a 17-stage ring oscillator circuit, the NEMS power gating will perform better than the FinFET-based power gating when the ${T}_{\mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}/{T}_{\mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle OFF}}$ ratio is less than 0.002.

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