Title :
Power gating of VLSI circuits using MEMS switches in low power applications
Author :
Shobak, Hosam ; Ghoneim, Mohamed ; El Boghdady, Nawal ; Halawa, Sarah ; Iskander, Sophinese ; Anis, Mohab
Author_Institution :
American Univ. in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Abstract :
Power dissipation poses a great challenge for VLSI designers. With the intense down-scaling of technology, the total power consumption of the chip is made up primarily of leakage power dissipation. This paper proposes combining a custom-designed MEMS switch to power gate VLSI circuits, such that leakage power is efficiently reduced while accounting for performance and reliability. The designed MEMS switch is characterized by an 0.1876 ? ON resistance and requires 4.5 V to switch. As a result of implementing this novel power gating technique, a standby leakage power reduction of 99% and energy savings of 33.3% are achieved. Finally the possible effects of surge currents and ground bounce noise are studied. These findings allow longer operation times for battery-operated systems characterized by long standby periods.
Keywords :
VLSI; integrated circuit design; integrated circuit noise; integrated circuit reliability; low-power electronics; microswitches; VLSI circuit design; battery-operated system; custom-designed MEMS switch; down-scaling technology; energy saving; ground bounce noise; low power application; power consumption; power dissipation leakage reduction; power gating technique; reliability; surge current effect; voltage 4.5 V; Electrostatics; Integrated circuit modeling; Mathematical model; Micromechanical devices; Microswitches; Switching circuits;
Conference_Titel :
Microelectronics (ICM), 2011 International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Hammamet
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-2207-3
DOI :
10.1109/ICM.2011.6177407
