Design of High-Performance Microprocessor Circuits
Design of High-Performance Microprocessor Circuits
Theoretical and practical limits of dynamic voltage scaling
Proceedings of the 41st annual Design Automation Conference
Leakage in Nanometer CMOS Technologies (Series on Integrated Circuits and Systems)
Leakage in Nanometer CMOS Technologies (Series on Integrated Circuits and Systems)
Interactive presentation: Process tolerant β-ratio modulation for ultra-dynamic voltage scaling
Proceedings of the conference on Design, automation and test in Europe
Beyond the conventional transistor
IBM Journal of Research and Development
Leakage-delay tradeoff in FinFET logic circuits: a comparative analysis with bulk technology
IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems
Flip-flop energy/performance versus clock slope and impact on the clock network design
IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Part I: Regular Papers
High-performance strained Si/SiGe pMOS devices with multiple quantum wells
IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology
IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems
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In this paper, the potential of Silicon-Germanium (SiGe) technology for VLSI logic applications is investigated from a circuit perspective for the first time. The study is based on experimental measurements on 45-nm SiGe pMOSFETs with a high-κ/metal gate stack, as well as on 45-nm Si pMOSFETs with identical gate stack for comparison. In the reference SiGe technology, an innovative technological solution is adopted that limits the SiGe material only to the channel region. The resulting SiGe device merges the higher speed of the Ge technology with the lower leakage of the Si technology. Appropriate circuit- and system-level metrics are introduced to identify the advantages offered by SiGe technology in VLSI circuits. Analysis is performed in the context of next-generation VLSI circuits that fully exploit circuit- and system-level techniques to improve the energy efficiency through aggressive voltage scaling, other than low-leakage techniques. Analysis shows that the SiGe technology has more efficient leakage-delay and dynamic energy-delay trade-offs at nominal supply, compared to Si technology. Moreover, it is shown that the traditional analysis performed at nominal supply actually underestimates the benefits of SiGe pMOSFETs, since the speed advantage of SiGe VLSI circuits is further emphasized at low voltages. This demonstrates that SiGe VLSI circuits benefit from aggressive voltage scaling significantly more than Si circuits, thereby making SiGe devices a very promising alternative to Si transistors in next-generation VLSI systems.