Dual-Vt Design of FPGAs for Subthreshold Leakage Tolerance

  • Authors:
  • Akhilesh Kumar;Mohab Anis

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Waterloo, ON, Canada;University of Waterloo, ON, Canada

  • Venue:
  • ISQED '06 Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

In this paper we propose a dual-Vt FPGA architecture for reduction of subthreshold leakage power. A CAD flow has been proposed based on the dual-Vt assignment algorithm and placement for realizing the dual-Vt FPGA architecture. Logic elements within the logic blocks are the candidates for dual-Vt assignment. We propose an architecture in which there are two kinds of logic blocks, one with all high-Vt logic elements and another with a fixed percentage of high-Vt logic elements. These two kinds of logic blocks are then placed in such a way that the FPGA architecture remains regular. Results indicate that in the ideal case of dual-Vt assignment, over 95% of the logic elements can be assigned high-Vt. Results show that leakage savings of 55% can be achieved. Design tradeoffs for various ratios of the two kinds of logic blocks are investigated. The dual-Vt FPGA CAD flow is intended for development and evaluation of dual-Vt FPGA architectures.