Sleep signal slew rate modulation for mode transition noise suppression in ground gated integrated circuits

Abstract

Ground bouncing noise produced during SLEEP to ACTIVE mode transitions is an important reliability concern in multi-threshold CMOS (MTCMOS) circuits. Single-phase and multi-phase sleep signal slew rate modulation techniques are explored in this paper to drastically suppress ground bouncing noise in MTCMOS circuits. Reactivation time, reactivation energy, leakage power consumption, and layout area of different MTCMOS circuits are characterized under an equi-noise constraint with a UMC 80nm CMOS technology.