Techniques for robust energy efficient subthreshold domino CMOS circuits

Body biasing, inverter topology, and charge restoring techniques for subthreshold domino circuits are evaluated for speed, energy, and noise immunity. Forward body-biasing minimizes energy, whereas dynamic body-biasing, effective in minimizing leakage, exacerbates clock feedthrough. At low frequencies, the traditional "keeper" scheme is energy efficient and solves problems related to leakage and charge-sharing. Pre-charging internal nodes minimizes charge-sharing but increases delay and power, particularly for large fan-in gates. For these gates at moderate frequencies, the two methods together strike a judicious balance among power, delay, and robustness