In situ delay-slack monitor for high-performance processors using an all-digital self-calibrating 5ps resolution time-to-digital converter

Abstract

Advanced CMOS technologies have become highly susceptible to process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variation. The standard approach for addressing this issue is to increase timing margin at the expense of power and performance. One approach to reclaim these losses relies on canary circuits [1] or sensors [2], which are simple to implement but cannot account for local variations. A more recent approach, called Razor, uses delay speculation coupled with error detection and correction to remove all margins but also imposes significant design complexity [3]. In this paper, we present a minimally-invasive in situ delay slack monitor that directly measures the timing margins on critical timing signals, allowing margins due to both global and local PVT variations to be removed.