Clock skew minimization in multi-voltage mode designs using adjustable delay buffers

Authors:
Yu-Shih Su;Wing-Kai Hon;Cheng-Chih Yang;Shih-Chieh Chang;Yeong-Jar Chang
Affiliations:
Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan;National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan;National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan;National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan;Infrastructure Research and Development Center, Faraday Technology Corporation, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Venue:
IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
Year:
2010

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Abstract

In synchronous circuit designs, clock skew is difficult to minimize because a single physical layout of a clock tree must satisfy multiple constraints in a complicated power mode environment where certain modules may operate with different voltages. In this paper, we use adjustable delay buffers (ADB) whose delays can be tuned or adjusted to minimize clock skew under different power modes. Assuming that the positions of k ADBs are already determined, we first propose a linear-time optimal algorithm which assigns the values of ADBs so that the skew is optimal among all possible ADB assignments with a possibility of latency penalty. Then, we propose a modified optimal algorithm without latency penalty. We also propose an efficient heuristic to determine good positions for ADBs. Our results show significant improvement when compared to cases without ADBs.