269 research outputs found
Steep-slope Devices for Power Efficient Adiabatic Logic Circuits
Reducing supply voltage is an effective way to reduce power consumption, however, it greatly reduces CMOS circuits speed. This translates in limitations on how low the supply voltage can be reduced in many applications due to frequency constraints. In particular, in the context of low voltage adiabatic circuits, another well-known technique to save power, it is not possible to obtain satisfactory power-speed trade-offs. Tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) have been shown to outperforms CMOS at low supply voltage in static logic implementations, operation due to their steep subthreshold slope (SS), and have potential for combining low voltage and adiabatic. To the best of our knowledge, the adiabatic circuit topologies reported with TFETs do not take into account the problems associated with their inverse current due to their intrinsic p-i-n diode. In this paper, we propose a solution to this problem, demonstrating that the proposed modification allows to significantly improving the performance in terms of power/energy savings compared to the original ones, especially at medium and low frequencies. In addition, we have evaluated the relative advantages of the proposed TFET adiabatic circuits, both at gate and architecture levels, with respect to their static implementations, demonstrating that these are greater than for FinFET transistor designs.
Index Terms—Adiabatic logic, TunnelPeer reviewe
IDPAL – A Partially-Adiabatic Energy-Efficient Logic Family: Theory and Applications to Secure Computing
Low-power circuits and issues associated with them have gained a significant amount of attention in recent years due to the boom in portable electronic devices. Historically, low-power operation relied heavily on technology scaling and reduced operating voltage, however this trend has been slowing down recently due to the increased power density on chips. This dissertation introduces a new very-low power partially-adiabatic logic family called Input-Decoupled Partially-Adiabatic Logic (IDPAL) with applications in low-power circuits. Experimental results show that IDPAL reduces energy usage by 79% compared to equivalent CMOS implementations and by 25% when compared to the best adiabatic implementation. Experiments ranging from a simple buffer/inverter up to a 32-bit multiplier are explored and result in consistent energy savings, showing that IDPAL could be a viable candidate for a low-power circuit implementation.
This work also shows an application of IDPAL to secure low-power circuits against power analysis attacks. It is often assumed that encryption algorithms are perfectly secure against attacks, however, most times attacks using side channels on the hardware implementation of an encryption operation are not investigated. Power analysis attacks are a subset of side channel attacks and can be implemented by measuring the power used by a circuit during an encryption operation in order to obtain secret information from the circuit under attack. Most of the previously proposed solutions for power analysis attacks use a large amount of power and are unsuitable for a low-power application. The almost-equal energy consumption for any given input in an IDPAL circuit suggests that this logic family is a good candidate for securing low-power circuits again power analysis attacks. Experimental results ranging from small circuits to large multipliers are performed and the power-analysis attack resistance of IDPAL is investigated. Results show that IDPAL circuits are not only low-power but also the most secure against power analysis attacks when compared to other adiabatic low-power circuits.
Finally, a hybrid adiabatic-CMOS microprocessor design is presented. The proposed microprocessor uses IDPAL for the implementation of circuits with high switching activity (e.g. ALU) and CMOS logic for other circuits (e.g. memory, controller). An adiabatic-CMOS interface for transforming adiabatic signals to square-wave signals is presented and issues associated with a hybrid implementation and their solutions are also discussed
Power Reductions with Energy Recovery Using Resonant Topologies
The problem of power densities in system-on-chips (SoCs) and processors has become more exacerbated recently, resulting in high cooling costs and reliability issues. One of the largest components of power consumption is the low skew clock distribution network (CDN), driving large load capacitance. This can consume as much as 70% of the total dynamic power that is lost as heat, needing elaborate sensing and cooling mechanisms. To mitigate this, resonant clocking has been utilized in several applications over the past decade. An improved energy recovering reconfigurable generalized series resonance (GSR) solution with all the critical support circuitry is developed in this work. This LC resonant clock driver is shown to save about 50% driver power (\u3e40% overall), on a 22nm process node and has 50% less skew than a non-resonant driver at 2GHz. It can operate down to 0.2GHz to support other energy savings techniques like dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS).
As an example, GSR can be configured for the simpler pulse series resonance (PSR) operation to enable further power saving for double data rate (DDR) applications, by using de-skewing latches instead of flip-flop banks. A PSR based subsystem for 40% savings in clocking power with 40% driver active area reduction xii is demonstrated. This new resonant driver generates tracking pulses at each transition of clock for dual edge operation across DVFS. PSR clocking is designed to drive explicit-pulsed latches with negative setup time. Simulations using 45nm IBM/PTM device and interconnect technology models, clocking 1024 flip-flops show the reductions, compared to non-resonant clocking. DVFS range from 2GHz/1.3V to 200MHz/0.5V is obtained. The PSR frequency is set \u3e3× the clock rate, needing only 1/10th the inductance of prior-art LC resonance schemes. The skew reductions are achieved without needing to increase the interconnect widths owing to negative set-up times.
Applications in data circuits are shown as well with a 90nm example. Parallel resonant and split-driver non-resonant configurations as well are derived from GSR. Tradeoffs in timing performance versus power, based on theoretical analysis, are compared for the first time and verified. This enables synthesis of an optimal topology for a given application from the GSR
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A Novel Reconfiguration Scheme in Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata for Energy Efficient Nanocomputing
Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is currently being investigated as an alternative to CMOS technology. There has been extensive study on a wide range of circuits from simple logical circuits such as adders to complex circuits such as 4-bit processors. At the same time, little if any work has been done in considering the possibility of reconfiguration to reduce power in QCA devices. This work presents one of the first such efforts when considering reconfigurable QCA architectures which are expected to be both robust and power efficient. We present a new reconfiguration scheme which is highly robust and is expected to dissipate less power with respect to conventional designs. An adder design based on the reconfiguration scheme will be presented in this thesis, with a detailed power analysis and comparison with existing designs. In order to overcome the problems of routing which comes with reconfigurability, a new wire crossing mechanism is also presented as part of this thesis
Autonomous Probabilistic Coprocessing with Petaflips per Second
In this paper we present a concrete design for a probabilistic (p-) computer
based on a network of p-bits, robust classical entities fluctuating between -1
and +1, with probabilities that are controlled through an input constructed
from the outputs of other p-bits. The architecture of this probabilistic
computer is similar to a stochastic neural network with the p-bit playing the
role of a binary stochastic neuron, but with one key difference: there is no
sequencer used to enforce an ordering of p-bit updates, as is typically
required. Instead, we explore \textit{sequencerless} designs where all p-bits
are allowed to flip autonomously and demonstrate that such designs can allow
ultrafast operation unconstrained by available clock speeds without
compromising the solution's fidelity. Based on experimental results from a
hardware benchmark of the autonomous design and benchmarked device models, we
project that a nanomagnetic implementation can scale to achieve petaflips per
second with millions of neurons. A key contribution of this paper is the focus
on a hardware metric flips per second as a problem and
substrate-independent figure-of-merit for an emerging class of hardware
annealers known as Ising Machines. Much like the shrinking feature sizes of
transistors that have continually driven Moore's Law, we believe that flips per
second can be continually improved in later technology generations of a wide
class of probabilistic, domain specific hardware.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Magnetic domain walls : Types, processes and applications
Domain walls (DWs) in magnetic nanowires are promising candidates for a
variety of applications including Boolean/unconventional logic, memories,
in-memory computing as well as magnetic sensors and biomagnetic
implementations. They show rich physical behaviour and are controllable using a
number of methods including magnetic fields, charge and spin currents and
spin-orbit torques. In this review, we detail types of domain walls in
ferromagnetic nanowires and describe processes of manipulating their state. We
look at the state of the art of DW applications and give our take on the their
current status, technological feasibility and challenges.Comment: 32 pages, 25 figures, review pape
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