{"title":"A Low Power SRAM Architecture Based on Segmented Virtual Grounding","authors":"M. Sharifkhani, M. Sachdev","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165635","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165635","url":null,"abstract":"A novel architecture for the reduction of both dynamic and static power consumption of static random access memories (SRAM) is presented. The scheme is based on the segmented virtual grounding (SVGND) of the SRAM cells. Substantial leakage reduction is achieved by increasing the threshold voltage of the cell transistors through body effect. The write and read energy consumptions are reduced significantly by decreasing the bitline voltage swing and the number of bitlines affected in each transaction. Unlike recently reported low-power schemes, SVGND allows multiple words to be placed in each row while keeping the dynamic power low. This feature is achieved by introducing an additional operation mode to the SRAM cells. The architecture is implemented in a 130nm CMOS technology. Using this scheme, the read and write array energy consumption can be saved by 44% and 84% respectively. Measurement results portraits 15 times leakage reduction compared to the conventional scheme","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123125967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. J. Guilar, Albert Chen, Travis Kleeburg, R. Amirtharajah
{"title":"Integrated Solar Energy Harvesting and Storage","authors":"N. J. Guilar, Albert Chen, Travis Kleeburg, R. Amirtharajah","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165580","url":null,"abstract":"To explore integrated solar energy harvesting as a power source for low power systems such as wireless sensor nodes, an array of energy scavenging photodiodes based on a passive-pixel architecture for imagers and have been fabricated together with storage capacitors implemented using on-chip interconnect in a 0.35 mum CMOS logic process. Integrated vertical plate capacitors enable dense energy storage without limiting optical efficiency. Measurements show 225 muW/mm2 output power generated by a light intensity of 20k LUX","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124441737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Power-Conscious Configuration Cache Structure and Code Mapping for Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architecture","authors":"Yoonjin Kim, Ilhyun Park, Kiyoung Choi, Y. Paek","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165646","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165646","url":null,"abstract":"Coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture aims to achieve both performance and flexibility. However, power consumption is no less important for the reconfigurable architecture to be used as a competitive processing core in embedded systems. In this paper, we show how power is consumed in a typical coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture. Based on the power breakdown data, we suggest a power-conscious configuration cache structure and code mapping technique, which reduce power consumption without performance degradation. Experimental results show that the proposed approach saves much power even with reduced configuration cache size","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121276776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Efficient Chip-level Time Slack Allocation Algorithm for Dual-Vdd FPGA Power Reduction","authors":"Yan Lin, Yu Hu, Lei He, Vijay Raghunat","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165613","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165613","url":null,"abstract":"To reduce FPGA power, a linear programming (LP) based time slack allocation algorithm, EdTLC-LP, has been proposed recently for Vdd-programmable interconnects without using Vdd-level converters for mixed wire lengths. However, it takes a long time to solve the LP problem for time slack allocation. In this paper, we develop EdTLC-NW, a slack allocation algorithm based on min-cost network flow to reduce runtime. Compared to single Vdd FPGA with power-gating, EdTLC-LP and EdTLC-NW reduce interconnect power by 52.71% and 52.52%, respectively. EdTLC-NW achieves as good results as EdTLC-LP but runs 8times faster on average. Furthermore, the speedup increases for larger circuits and EdTLC-NW is 20times faster for the largest circuit","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115033776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dynamic Current Modeling at the Instruction Level","authors":"Jose Rizo-Morente, M. Casas-Sanchez, C. Bleakley","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165596","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165596","url":null,"abstract":"Estimation of processor current consumption is important for the design of low power systems. This paper proposes a novel method for estimating the dynamic current consumption of a processor. The method models dynamic current as the output of a linear system excited by a signal comprised of the total current due to each instruction. System identification is performed by cross-correlation of a pseudo-random stimulus with the measured current. The method was applied to the Texas Instruments TMS320VC5510 DSP and was found to provide an average correlation of 93% between estimated and measured dynamic current across a range of benchmarks","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128736565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. Fujiwara, K. Nii, J. Miyakoshi, Y. Murachi, Y. Morita, H. Kawaguchi, M. Yoshimoto
{"title":"A Two-Port SRAM for Real-Time Video Processor Saving 53% of Bitline Power with Majority Logic and Data-Bit Reordering","authors":"H. Fujiwara, K. Nii, J. Miyakoshi, Y. Murachi, Y. Morita, H. Kawaguchi, M. Yoshimoto","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165589","url":null,"abstract":"We propose a low-power two-port SRAM suitable for real-time video processing. In order to minimize discharge power on a read bitline, a majority-logic decides if input data are inverted in a write cycle, so that \"1\"s are in the majority. In video data, since more significant bits of adjacent pixel data are fortunately lopsided to either \"0\" or \"1\" with higher probability, the data bits in the pixels are reordered in each digit group to exploit the majority logic. The speed and area overheads are 4% and 11% in a 90-nm process technology, respectively. The proposed SRAM achieves 53% power reduction on the bitlines, and saves 43% of a total power when considered as an H.264 reconstructed-image memory","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123487455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jason Hsu, S. Zahedi, A. Kansal, M. Srivastava, V. Raghunathan
{"title":"Adaptive Duty Cycling for Energy Harvesting Systems","authors":"Jason Hsu, S. Zahedi, A. Kansal, M. Srivastava, V. Raghunathan","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165616","url":null,"abstract":"Harvesting energy from the environment is feasible in many applications to ameliorate the energy limitations in sensor networks. In this paper, we present an adaptive duty cycling algorithm that allows energy harvesting sensor nodes to autonomously adjust their duty cycle according to the energy availability in the environment. The algorithm has three objectives, namely: (a) achieving energy neutral operation, i.e., energy consumption should not be more than the energy provided by the environment; (b) maximizing the system performance based on an application utility model subject to the above energy-neutrality constraint; and (c) adapting to the dynamics of the energy source at run-time. We present a model that enables harvesting sensor nodes to predict future energy opportunities based on historical data. We also derive an upper bound on the maximum achievable performance assuming perfect knowledge about the future behavior of the energy source. Our methods are evaluated using data gathered from a prototype solar energy harvesting platform and we show that our algorithm can utilize up to 58% more environmental energy compared to the case when harvesting-aware power management is not used","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126553216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Input-specific Dynamic Power Optimization for VLSI Circuits","authors":"Fei Hu, V. Agrawal","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165630","url":null,"abstract":"Literature proposes linear programming (LP) methods for glitch-less design of digital circuits. Considering the worst-case these methods ensure absence of glitches for any arbitrary state of primary input as well as internal signals. In this paper, we examine an unexplored aspect, i.e., glitch-free design with respect to a specific set of vectors (patterns). Introducing the logic-level concepts of glitch-generation patterns and glitch-generation probability, which are analyzable through logic simulation, we remove glitch filtering requirements from gates on which the given set of input vectors cannot produce glitches. We relax constraints of any existing LP either selectively or probabilistically. Such input-specific design from an LP model without process variation and another with process variation reduced the number of delay buffer overhead by up to 80% and 63%, respectively, while maintaining the power reduction and overall delay","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"43 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128902320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"High-Speed Low-Power Frequency Divider with Intrinsic Phase Rotator","authors":"S. Henzler, S. Koeppe","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165641","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165641","url":null,"abstract":"A CMOS divider concept without static power consumption, except leakage power, is proposed. The circuit divides an input signal by two and generates four phases with highly accurate phase skew of 90 degrees. In a 90nm low-power CMOS technology, the maximum operation frequency is 11.6 GHz for a supply voltage of 1.5V slow process and worst case operation parameters. Higher frequencies can be achieved by a hybrid approach where the signal is first divided by a factor of two in a single CML stage and then by the proposed circuit by another factor of two for the generation of the four phases. The divider is applied to dual modulus pre-scalers and IQ receivers. A variant of the circuit contains an intrinsic phase-rotator, so the power consumption of the pre-scaler is not only reduced due to the logic style but also by a simplified architecture of the overall pre-scaler","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128306185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ravishankar Rao, S. Vrudhula, C. Chakrabarti, N. Chang
{"title":"An Optimal Analytical Solution for Processor Speed Control with Thermal Constraints","authors":"Ravishankar Rao, S. Vrudhula, C. Chakrabarti, N. Chang","doi":"10.1145/1165573.1165643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/1165573.1165643","url":null,"abstract":"As semiconductor manufacturing technology scales to smaller device sizes, the power consumption of clocked digital ICs begins to increase. Dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) is a well-known technique for conserving energy. Recently, it has also been used to control the CPU temperature as part of dynamic thermal management (DTM) techniques. Most works in these areas assume that the optimum speed profile (for either minimizing energy or maximizing performance) is a constant profile. However, in the presence of thermal constraints, we show that the optimal profile is in general, a time-varying function. We formulate the problem of maximizing the average throughput of a processor over a given time period, subject to thermal and speed constraints, as a problem in the calculus of variations. The variational approach provides a powerful framework for precisely specifying and solving the speed control problem, and allows us to obtain an exact analytical solution. The solution methodology is very general, and works for any convex power model, and simple lumped RC thermal models. The resulting speed profiles were found to consist of up to three segments, of which one of them is a decreasing function of time, and the others are constant. We analyze the effect of different parameters like the initial temperature, thermal capacitance and the maximum rated speed on the nature and the cost of the optimum solution. We also propose a two-speed solution that approximates the optimal speed curve. This solution was found to achieve a performance close to that of the optimum, and is also easier to implement in real processors","PeriodicalId":119229,"journal":{"name":"ISLPED'06 Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design","volume":"194 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127122396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}