Controller Redesign Based Clock and Register Power Minimization

Rao, Srikanth M and Nandy, SK (2000) Controller Redesign Based Clock and Register Power Minimization. In: 2000 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems. ISCAS 2000, 28-31 May, Geneva,Switzerland, Vol.3, 275-278.

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Abstract

Clock gating is an effective technique for minimizing dynamic power in sequential circuits. However, clock gating has some practical difficulties viz., possibility of glitches on the gated clock and in use of static timing analysis for verifying timing of the design. In this paper we describe a robust scheme for power minimization that eliminates these difficulties of clock gating and yet provides nearly the same power savings. This scheme does not rely on propagation delays in the circuit for functioning, and is robust across process technologies. In this scheme, the controllers sequencing operations in a datapath are modified so that the control signals themselves are used as clocks for registers in the datapath. Since these "control clocks" typically operate at lower frequencies, power is saved in the registers and in the clock drivers. This scheme also preserves the cycle boundaries on which registers in the original circuit load data, thereby allowing reuse of test cases developed for the functional verification of the original circuit.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Publisher:	IEEE
Additional Information:	Copyright 1990 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.
Department/Centre:	Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Supercomputer Education & Research Centre
Date Deposited:	27 Feb 2006
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:24
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/5718

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