Capacitance selection for digital floating-gate circuits operating in subthreshold

For digital circuits with ultra-low power consumption, floating-gate circuits (FGMOS) have been considered to be a potentially better technique than standard static CMOS circuits. By having a DC offset on the floating gates, the effective threshold voltage of the floating-gate transistor is adjusted and the speed and power performance can be altered. In this paper we have investigated how the floating-gate capacitances can be selected to achieve the best performance in floating-gate circuits operating at subthreshold power supply. Based on circuit simulations in a 120nm process technology, it is shown that the EDP offers a reduction of more than one order of magnitude for FGMOS with capacitance selection in comparison to static CMOS circuits. This paper also deals with the possibilities available for trade-offs between lower power consumption and higher speed to achieve a better performance for FGMOS than for static CMOS. The main cost involved in achieving these performance improvements is reduced noise margins