Optimized power-delay curve generation for standard cell ICs

An effective way to compare logic techniques, logic families, or cell libraries is by means of power (or area) versus delay plots, since the efficiency of achieving a particular delay is of crucial significance. In this paper we describe a method of producing an optimized power versus delay curve for a combinational circuit. We then describe a method for comparing the relative merits of a set of power versus delay curves for a circuit, each generated with a different cell library. Our results indicate that very few combinational functions need to be in a cell library, at most 11. The power-delay points achieved by Design Compiler from Synopsys using the state-of-the-art Artisan Sage-X library compare unfavorably to our approach. In terms of minimum energy-delay product, our approach is superior by 79% on average. Our approach yields the same delay points with a 107% savings in power consumption, on average. We also show that the specified V_DD for a process technology should only be used for the absolute fastest implementations of a circuit.