Temperature referenced supply voltage and forward-body-bias control (TSFC) architecture for minimum power consumption [ubiquitous computing processors]

Abstract

A temperature referenced supply voltage and forward-body-bias (FBB) control architecture for ubiquitous computing processors is proposed. The architecture can minimize power consumption at all temperatures by using our discovered FBB self-feedback effect. The effect is that low temperature forces the FBB-controlled LSI to increase its performance. The TSFC reduced power consumption by 28% without any performance degradation compared with the conventional FBB technique. We also found and analyzed the dual parasitic bipolar modes in the FBB system by evaluating a test chip fabricated in 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. Moreover, the influence of supply and substrate wire resistances in the FBB system was found to be not significant. The TSFC architecture is effective for achieving ubiquitous computing LSIs.