Static power optimization using dual sub threshold supply voltages in digital cmos vlsi circuits

International Journal of VLSI design & Communication Systems (VLSICS) Vol.4, No.5, October 2013

STATIC POWER OPTIMIZATION USING DUAL
SUB-THRESHOLD SUPPLY VOLTAGES IN
DIGITAL CMOS VLSI CIRCUITS
Mrs. K. Srilakshmi1, Mrs. Y. Syamala2 and A. Suvir Vikram3
1

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Gudlavalleru Engineering
College, Gudlavalleru, A.P. India
2
3

Abstract
Power dissipation in high performance systems requires more expensive packaging. In this situation, low
power VLSI design has assumed great importance as an active and rapidly developing field. As the density
and operating speed of CMOS VLSI chip increases, static power dissipation becomes more significant. This
is due to the leakage current when the transistor is off this is threshold voltage dependent. This can be
observed in the combinational and sequential circuits. Static power reduction techniques are achieved by
means of operating the transistor either in Cut-off or in Saturation region completely and avoiding the
clock in unnecessary circuits. In this work, “Dual sub-threshold voltage supply” technique is used to
operate the transistor under off state or either in on state by applying some voltage at the gate of the MOS
transistor. This static power reduction technique is to digital circuits, so that the power dissipation is
reduced and the performance of the circuit is increased. The designed circuits can be simulated by using
Mentor Graphics Backend Tool.

Keywords
Dual sub-threshold, reliability, power dissipation, leakage current.

1. INTRODUCTION
Low power design is the upcoming design technology due to its high performance batteryportable digital systems. Presently there are many portable devices that run on batteries, laptop,
tablet PC, mobile phone, ipod, etc. The power dissipation in these devices is high. This is due to
the supply of high voltage to the low power components in the device. If the supply power is low
then the circuits operating with that power should be capable of holding the loads. For example,
if an amplifier circuit is working with low input power then the output should be capable of
driving a loud speaker. The circuits which requires low power is better to use battery, so that the
device will be portable. If the power is reduced then the circuits that require low power to be used
and thus the number of circuit’s increases but the power supply remains the same. As the circuits
are operated in parallel the output of one circuit will depend on other circuit or may be
DOI : 10.5121/vlsic.2013.4506

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independent and the usage of clock circuit is mandatory. Therefore the complexity of circuits
increases and the power (energy) supply remains same.
If the speed is increased then the circuits must be operated with high frequency clock pulse, at the
same time, if some circuits needs low frequency thus there is a need of a frequency divider and
some extra hardware is required to connect the circuits. Thus, the complexity is increased for the
high speed devices. Thermal problems arise due to more hardware in a dense packing. For this
there is a need for the cooling process. So, there is a need for heat sinks and cooling fans for heat
exhaust. By the use of low power circuits, there is no need of heavy weighted devices like
transformers. Due to these considerations the weight, size and cost are reduced. The dual subthreshold supply voltage technique would help to operate where complex devices need to
consume less power. Thereby, the complex circuits will dissipate less amount of power.
At the same time, due to the use of battery power there is no fluctuations in the supply power and
the noise produced by the circuits is very low. The need for low power is to reduce the power
dissipation, to increase the battery life time, reducing heat sinks, cooling fans and finally the cost
of the device also reduces. In this work, the circuits are designed and simulated in mentor
graphics back-end tool through Linux operating system. This provides the better way to design
the circuits from physical design and the circuits can be simulated easily as in the real time. The
remaining sections of the paper as follows: section 2 is about different low power design
techniques, design principles, power dissipation are given in section 3 and 4, implementation of
the circuits are given in section 5 and finally results and conclusion are discussed.

2. DIFFERENT LOW POWER DESIGN TECHNIQUES
There are certain low power techniques that provide low power dissipation by using the low
power design techniques. Techniques used in low power design includes

2.1 Clock gating technique
In this technique, the circuit consumes more power when the clock is on and the clock pulse must
be provided to every circuit which leads to complexity. The clock signal generator also consumes
power every time when the supply is on. The disadvantage of this technique is increase of leakage
power [1] [2] in the circuit when there is no input.

2.2 Multi-threshold CMOS (MTCMOS)
In multi threshold technique [3] different supply voltages are given to different circuit
components depending on the circuit path length. If the path length is long then high threshold
supply voltage must be given, if not low threshold supply voltage must be given so that low
voltage drop takes place. In this technique, the disadvantage is different threshold supply voltages
are provided in the circuit, this leads to the degradation of the compatibility.

2.3 Stacked Transistors
In this technique, more number of transistors can be incorporated on a single wafer. So the
transistor stacking will allow them to increase circuit density. They appear to be building silicon
wafers and stacking them together. Advantage of this technique is reducing IC size. Low power is
sufficient to drive an IC due to reduced wire length and power dissipation can also be reduced.
The disadvantage of the circuit is operated at high voltage, but the power dissipation due to
resistance is reduced due to reduced wire length.
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2.4 Dynamic Threshold MOS (DTMOS)
In this technique, the threshold supply voltage can be varied between some fixed range of voltage.
As the circuit will be designed with a predefined technology and once if the IC is manufactured it
cannot be modified internally for a designed technology. The disadvantage of this technique is
that the components do not have certain limit of threshold supply voltage.

2.5 Dynamic/voltage/frequency scaling [4-7]
In this technique, the supply voltage can be reduced without change in the technology of the
circuit that is designed and the frequency of the input can be scaled down these are dynamic
changes done externally. The disadvantage in this technique is the supply voltage is technology
dependent, if high voltage is given to the components then the component is damaged.

2.6 Near sub-threshold supply [4-7]
In this technique, the supply voltage is scaled down such that the devices are also scaled down. So
the devices can be operated at sub-threshold voltage. The disadvantage in this technique is when
the component is used just above the threshold voltage then there can be an electron migration in
the transistors used in the circuit.

3. DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Transistors are designed in such a way that the width of the gate should be more when compared
with the length of the channel this is made such that the for applied gate voltage the channel must
be formed for logic high in NMOS and logic low in PMOS transistors. If the insulator used at the
gate of the MOS transistor is of very less width than the channel length, hence if the transistor is
off even though certain current flows due to charge induced due to capacitance effect. To reduce
the leakage current the length and width of MOS transistor is made suitably for low voltage
applications that to near sub-threshold voltages.
In this paper, by using multi threshold supply voltages that are provided with near sub-threshold
voltage and the voltage can also be varied around below sub-threshold and near sub-threshold
voltages. Transistors are designed to operate at weak inversion, so that sub threshold supply
voltage is sufficient to operate these transistors with negligible leakage current. Static power
consumed by these transistors is very less. The dynamic power consumed by the transistors
depends on the switching frequency of the signal that is applied at the gate of the transistor, full
supply voltage and the load capacitance used.
Supply voltage scaling was developed for switching power reduction. It is an efficient method for
reducing switching power. It also helps to reduce leakage power because the sub-threshold
leakage is due to Gate Induced Drain Leakage (GIDL) and Drain Induced Barrier Leakage
(DIBL), these are also reduced as well as the gate leakage component when the supply voltage is
scaled down. Static supply voltage scaling is a multiple supply voltage where as different supply
voltages are provided. The speed of the non-critical paths are not deterministic where as the speed
of the critical paths are lowered when compared with the non-critical paths. In order to satisfy the
speed performance the critical and non-critical paths are made to operate with same speed without
disturbing the system performance. By using multiple supply voltage technique the interconnect
delays are made negligible depending upon the lengths of the interconnects.

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4. POWER DISSIPATION
Static power is reduced by reducing the length of the channel and width of the gate of transistors
[3], this is the easy way to reduce the static power consumption of a transistor without disturbing
its operation. The low voltage operation is that the conduction is due to diffusion of charge
carriers. Transistors connected to low threshold supply voltage conduct as the channel will be
formed for very low voltage. So that, even for a high threshold supply voltage the power
dissipation by the transistors is less. The near sub-threshold supply voltage is sufficient for the
transistors to conduct. Static power essentially consists of the power used when the transistor is
not in the process of switching.

Pstatic = Istatic*Vdd

(1)

The near threshold supply voltage is also provided in order to make the transistors to conduct if
there are equal paths that there are no critical and non-critical paths. Hence all the transistors need
equal voltages. Thereby, the static power dissipation is reduced. Dynamic power is the sum of
transient power consumption (Ptransient) and capacitive load power (Pcap) consumption. Ptransient
represents the amount of power consumed when the device changes logic states. Capacitive load
power consumption is the power used to charge the load capacitance.

Pdynamic = Pcap + Ptransient = (CL + C) *Vdd2 *f*N3

(2)

Where ‘N’ is the number of logic values that are switching, ‘f’ is the switching frequency. The
short circuit power depends upon the frequency of the transition. Hence the total power dissipated
is the sum of all the power dissipations in the circuit.

Ptotal =Pststic+Psc+Pdynamic

(3)

The power dissipation can also be further reduced by placing a transmission gate between the
circuit and the power supply. The inputs are connected to the transmission gate also. Depending
upon the inputs the transmission gate conducts that means there is some input to the circuit. When
there is no input the transmission gate will be in off state. If the transistors are not designed as per
our requirement the leakage power dissipation will be high as the leakage power is inversely
proportional to the threshold voltage. A way to reduce leakage power consumption is to raise the
Vth of some gates. A higher Vth reduces the sub-threshold leakage. Hence, the transistors are
designed in order to reduce the power dissipation to maximum level. The use of two power
supplies makes some devices to allow the leakage current hence by providing a third power
supply that is greater than the threshold supply voltage. The delay increases as the supply voltage
is scaled down. This technique can be applied to any circuit either combinational or sequential
circuit.

5. IMPLEMENTATION
Any CMOS circuits can be designed by implementing the dual sub-threshold supply voltages
along with Vdd. The designed combinational circuits are decoder, 4x1 multiplexer and sequential
circuits are Moore and Mealey machine, ring counter. The logic gates are designed with CMOS
transistors, the gates are designed as shown below. The inverter with VDD as supply voltage is
given in Figure 1.

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Figure 1. Inverter with VDD as supply voltage

In this circuit the input is applied to both transistors depending on the applied input logic the
transistors conduct and the output is obtained. The inverter circuit uses very less number of
transistors connected through the supply voltage to the ground. Hence very low voltage is
sufficient to operate the inverter with very less power dissipation. The power dissipation for
different supply voltages is tabulated.

Figure 2. NAND gate with VDD as supply voltage

The NAND gate with VDD as supply voltage is given in Figure 2. The circuit inputs are i1 and i2,
depending on the input voltage applied transistors conduct and the output at O is obtained. The
designed NAND gate uses supply voltage either VDD or Low Vth or High Vth. Depending upon
the voltage applied the NAND gate is operated with low leakage current and very low power
dissipation.

Figure 3. 4-input OR gate with VDD as supply voltage

Figure 3 gives the functionality of 4-input OR gate with VDD as supply voltage. In this circuit,
the inputs are i1, i2, i3, i4 and the output is O. The input is applied to the transistors as the input
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voltage is very low the transistors conduct. Depending upon the number of transistors used in the
circuit the supply voltage is also varied, if there are a number of transistors connected in series the
supply voltage is to be increased in order to obtain the required output for the given input.

Figure 4. 2-input AND gate with Vdd as supply voltage.

The 2-input AND gate with VDD as supply voltage is given in Figure 4. In this circuit the inputs
are in1 and in2. The output is O. Depending upon the applied logic the transistors conduct and the
output is obtained. The AND gate designed with an inverter and the NAND gate, hence inverter
requires very low power supply, NAND gate uses some high voltage than the inverter. Hence
High Vth supply voltage is sufficient to drive the AND gate.

Figure 5. D-Flip Flop

The D-Flip flop is given in Figure 5. In this circuit, the inputs are Data in and Clk. The outputs
are Q and Qbar. The NOT gate applied between the two NAND gates to provide the inverted
operation for the given input so that output at Qbar is obtained. For the given input the required
output at Q is obtained. The D-Flip flop requires (high threshold supply voltage) High Vth supply
voltage, hence in order to dissipate low power the transistors are designed with required
parameters such as channel length and gate width of the transistor. Further, the designed circuits
are discussed below. The 4x1 Multiplexer with dual sub-threshold supply voltage is given in
Figure 6.

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Figure 6. 4x1 Multiplexer with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

The simulation waveform of 4x1 Multiplexer with dual sub-threshold supply voltage is given in
Figure 7. In this waveform, the inputs are i1, i2, i3, i4, s0 and s1 and output is Out. In this s0, s1
are selection lines. Depending on the inputs applied to the AND gates, by means of selection lines
the outputs from each gate is connected to the OR gate and the output Out is obtained. In the
above designed circuit the NOT gate can also be provided with low threshold supply voltage as
the voltage drop in the NOT gate is very low, the AND gat uses more number of transistors so
high Vth supply voltage can be provided and the OR gate that drives all the outputs from the
AND gates require Vdd as power supply and also there are more number of transistors required
for4-input OR gate.

Figure 7. Simulation waveform of 4x1 Multiplexer with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

The Differential cascode voltage switched (DCVS) level converter for NOT gate is shown in
Figure 8 and its simulation waveform is given in Figure 9. In this circuit, the input is IN, output is
OUT The DCVS circuit designed with NOT gates and few transistors so low threshold supply
voltage is provided to the inner NOT gate and high threshold supply voltage is provided to the
overall circuit and the output driven NOT gate.

Figure 8. Differential cascode voltage switched (DCVS) level converter for NOT gate

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Figure 9. Simulation waveform of DCVS level converter for NOT gate

The 2 × 4 Decoder with dual sub-threshold supply voltage and its simulation waveforms are given
in Figures 10 and 11 respectively.

Figure 10. 2 × 4 Decoder with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

Figure 11. Simulation waveform of 2 × 4 Decoder with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

Later, the same technique was applied for sequential circuits and its functionality was verified.
The Mealey and Moore machine with dual sub-threshold supply voltage are shown in Figures
12 and 13. The simulation waveforms of the designed circuits are given in Figure 14 and 15
respectively. In this circuit, inputs are A, D1 and Clk. Outputs are D2 and Z. Depending on the
inputs applied to the AND gate the D-flip flop output is obtained, this is connected to the NOR
gate the output Z is obtained. Similarly the output is at D2. The mealey machine is designed
with D-Flip flops, AND, OR, NOR gates depending upon the path lengths connected in the
circuit the supply voltage to the different blocks in the circuit is also varied. In this inputs are
Vin and Clk. Output is Y. Depending on the inputs applied to the D-flip flops through the logic
gates output is obtained, this is connected to the OR gate and the output Y is obtained.
84


Figure 12. Mealey Machine with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

Figure 13. Moore Machine with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

The Moore machine is designed with D-flip flop, OR, AND gates depending upon the path
lengths the power is supplied in order not to waste the supply power in the form of power
dissipated as heat. Longest paths require high threshold supply, shortest paths require low
threshold supply voltage, and circuit blocks with more number of transistors require Vdd as
supply voltage that is greater than the high threshold supply voltage.

Figure 14. Simulation waveform of Mealey Machine with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

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Figure 15. Simulation waveform of Moore Machine with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

The ring counter with dual sub-threshold supply voltage is given in Figure 16. In this inputs are
reset and Clk. Outputs are R0, R1, R2, R3 and R4. Depending on the inputs applied to the D-flip
flops output R1, R2, R3, R4 are obtained this is due to the delay by each flip-flop, this is
connected to the NOR gate and the output R0 is obtained. The output can be clearly obtained for
clock pulse with less with. Ring counter uses only two power supplies that are high threshold
supply voltage and Vdd supply, for 4-input NOR gate as there are more number of transistors
required hence Vdd supply is provided. D-flip flop uses few gates than the NOR gate in this
circuit so high threshold supply voltage is provided. This dual supply voltage also provides an
advantage depending upon the path length in the circuit.

Figure 16. Ring Counter with dual sub-threshold supply voltage

Some circuit designs allow only low threshold, some other high threshold, some circuits uses both
low and high threshold supply voltages. Power consumption is different in different circuits, as it
depends upon the supply voltage, load applied, type of components used to design the circuit, the
technique and technology used to design the circuit. The 1.25µm technology is used to implement
these designed circuits. The power dissipation of circuits with sub-threshold supply voltages
along with Vdd is given in Table 1. The results of power dissipation of circuits with dual subthreshold supply voltages are given in Table 2.

86

Table 1. Power dissipation of circuits with sub-threshold supply voltages along with Vdd

Supply voltages(volts)
Designed circuit

Power
dissipation
(watts)

Vdd

Vddhigh

Vddlow

DCVS for NOT gate

0.7

0.35

0.15

2.279µ

Nand
Inverter
2 to 4 Decoder

--------0.7

------------0.35

0.15
0.15
0.15

39.9354n
25.9438f
1.7851µ

Moore
Ring counter
Up-down counter

0.7
1.5
0.7

0.25
----0.25

0.15
0.15
0.15v

18.6552µ
690.1097n
4.6425µ

Table 2. Power dissipation of circuits with dual sub-threshold supply voltages

Designed circuit
DCVS for NOT gate
Inverter
Nand
2 to 4Decoder
Up-down counter

Supply voltages(volts)
Vddlow Vddhigh
0.24
0.24
0.24
0.24
0.24

Power dissipation
(watts)

0.15
0.15
0.15
0.15
0.15

6.385 µ
34.680n
244.0433n
5.417 µ
35.9634u

6. POWER DISSIPATION COMPARISON
The power dissipation by using the dual sub-threshold supply voltage is more this is because of
the more leakage power and the output results are not accurate, when compared with the power
dissipation using the dual sub-threshold supply voltage along with Vdd and the output is accurate.
The Table 3 describes the percentage of power dissipation between dual sub-threshold supply
voltage along with Vdd and dual sub-threshold supply voltage.
Table 3. Percentage reduction of power dissipation for dual sub-threshold supply voltage with and without
supply voltage

S.No.

Designed circuits

Power dissipation (watts)
without VDD

Power reduction
(%)

withVDD

1
2.
3.

DCVS
Decoder
Nand

6.385µ
5.417 µ
244.0433n

2.279 µ
1.7851 µ
39.9354n

73.69
75.21
85.93

4.

Up-Down counter

35.9634 µ

4.6425 µ

88.56

87


7. CONCLUSION
The power dissipation by using dual sub-threshold supply voltage along with VDD is less when
compared to the dual sub-threshold supply voltage without VDD. The power dissipation increases
while increasing the VDD supply voltage. The leakage power dissipation is high for very low
supply voltages due to the leakage current through the ground. This technique can be applied for
any CMOS digital circuits depending on number of components used. High supply voltages can
not be applied for these designed circuits. Hence this technique provides a better solution for the
low power devices.

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]

Kaushik Roy, Amit Agarwal, Chris H. Kim, Circuit Techniques for Leakage Reduction, LLC 2006.
Kaushik Roy, Saibal Mukhopadhyay and Hamid Mahmoodi-Meimand IEEE, Leakage Current
Mechanisms and Leakage Reduction Techniques in Deep-Submicrometer CMOS Circuits,
Contributed Paper, pp.315-318.
Shin’ichiro Mutoh , Yasuyuki Matsuya , Takahko Aoki and Junzo Yamada “1-V Power Supply
High-speed Digital Circuit Technology with Multithreshold-Voltage CMOS”, IEEE, vol. 30, August
1995, pp.847-848.
R. Gonzalez, B. M. Gordon, and M. A. Horowib. “Supply and threshold voltage scaling for low
power CMOS”, IEEE, Vol. 32, No. 8, August 1997.
L. Clark, R. Patel and T. Beatty, “Managing Standby and Active Mode Leakage Power in Deep
Sub-micron Design”, IEEE Circuits Devices Mag., vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 7–18, Jan./Feb. 2005.
Pankaj Pant, Rabindra K. Roy, and Abhijit Chatterjee “Dual-Threshold Voltage Assignment with
Transistor Sizing for Low Power CMOS Circuits”, IEEE 2001 pp.303-306.
Md.Asif Jahangir Chowdhury “An Efficient VLSI Design Approach to Reduce Static Power using
Variable Body Biasing”, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 2012, pp. 262263.

Authors
Srilakshmi born at Karnataka. She completed her B.Tech degree from
JNTUK,
Kakinada, India in 2009, and M.Tech in 2011 from the JNTUK University in VLSI
System Design as specialization. She is currently working as a assistant professor in
Department of ECE in Gudlavalleru Engineering college, India. Her research interest
includes Low power design, VLSI design, and embedded design. She has been
published several papers in different various conferences.
Syamala born on Sept 14th 1980 in kavali, India. Obtained B.E degree from Bharatiyar
University, India in 2001. M.E degree in applied electronics from Anna University in
2005. In 2005, she joined as an assistant professor in Gudlavalleru Engineering College.
In 2011, she promoted as an Associate Professor in department of ECE, GEC, India.
She has been a member of IEEE, FIETE, ISTE, and MISTE. She has published several
papers in the area of VLSI. Her research interest includes VLSI design, digital design
and testing.
Suvir Vikram.A born in Vuyyuru, India. He has obtained his Bachelor degree in
Electronics and Communication from Newtons Institute of Engineering, Macherla in
2011. Presently he is pursuing his Masters degree in Embedded Systems of Electronics
and Communication in Gudlavalleru Engineering College, Gudlavalleru from 2011 to
2013 .He is interested in Low power VLSI design. He is currently working on a project
titled “Static Power Optmization using dual sub-threshold supply voltage in Digital
CMOS VLSI Circuits”as a partial fulfilment of his M.Tech degree.

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