Temperature-Adaptive Voltage Tuning for Enhanced Energy Efficiency in Ultra-Low-Voltage Circuits

Circuits optimized for minimum energy consumption operate typically in the subthreshold regime with ultra-low power-supply voltages. Speed of a subthreshold logic circuit is enhanced with an increase in the die temperature. The excessive timing slack observed in the clock period of subthreshold logic circuits at elevated temperatures provides opportunities to lower the active-mode energy consumption. A temperature-adaptive dynamic-supply voltage-tuning technique is proposed in this paper to reduce the high-temperature energy consumption without degrading the clock frequency in ultra-low-voltage subthreshold logic circuits. Results indicate that the energy consumption can be lowered by up to 40% by dynamically scaling the supply voltage at elevated temperatures. An alternative technique based on temperature-adaptive reverse body bias to exponentially reduce the subthreshold leakage currents at elevated temperatures is also investigated. The active-mode energy consumption with two temperature-adaptive voltage-tuning techniques is compared. The impact of the process parameter and supply voltage variations on the proposed temperature-adaptive voltage scaling techniques is evaluated. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved