A circuit technique for leakage power reduction in CMOS VLSI circuits

Abstract

Scaling of CMOS technology improved the speed nevertheless the leakage currents are leftover as an adverse effect. The problem has taken a serious turn as the scaling extends into ultra-deep-submicron (UDSM) region. These unsolicited leakage currents should be minimized for the smooth functioning of the circuit. Designing of such leakage free nanoscale CMOS circuits turns to be a challenging task. In this work, we address the issue of leakage power that arises with the device channel length scaling to sub-100nm. We present a circuit technique to mitigate the leakage currents of MOSFET through controlling the voltage at the source terminal of the MOSFET. CMOS inverter designed using the proposed technique results in 98% and 30% improvement in static and total power dissipation respectively compared with its conventional design. The simulation results of NAND and NOR gates designed using the same technique indicates 15.89% and 18.83% improvement in the total power compared with their corresponding conventional designs. 11-stage CMOS ring oscillator designed using the proposed technique is analyzed, and corresponding simulation results are reported. Comparison of the proposed circuits in terms of power dissipation and delay with two existing techniques is presented. The circuits designed using the proposed technique results in good Power-Delay Product (PDP).