A Variability-Aware Energy-Minimization Strategy for Subthreshold Circuits

We investigate a design strategy for subthreshold circuits focusing on energy-consumption minimization and yield maximization under process variations. The design strategy is based on the following findings related to the operation of low-power CMOS circuits: (1) The minimum operation voltage (VDDmin ) of a circuit is dominated by flip-flops (FFs), and VDDmin of an FF can be improved by upsizing a few key transistors, (2) VDDmin of an FF is stochastically modeled by a log-normal distribution, (3) VDDmin of a large circuit can be efficiently estimated by using the above model, which eliminates extensive Monte Carlo simulations, and (4) improving VDDmin may substantially contribute to decreasing energy consumption. The effectiveness of the proposed design strategy has been verified through circuit simulations on various circuits, which clearly show the design tradeoff between voltage scaling and transistor sizing. key words: subthreshold operation, process variation, minimum operation voltage estimation, energy minimization, yield maximization