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Low Power Circuit Technology
The mission of the CRL Low Power Circuit Technology group is to provide low power circuit design solutions for products in 0.1 micron and beyond process generation. Research in our group currently focuses on improving short channel effects, circuit performance increase and energy reduction, dual-Vt circuit design, low leakage decoupling capacitors, process variation impact on circuits, DRAM implementation on logic technology and SOI specific circuit solutions.
High Performance
This research is motivated by the needs of advanced process generations, where leakage power is expected to be a significant component of active power. We have developed several novel logic elements that can be used to equal or exceed the performance of conventional domino circuits, while using half the number of devices and at half the leakage power. We are also developing high performance interconnect driver schemes and multiple Vt techniques for register files. Our other research areas include techniques for improving single event upset hardness and robust, accurate, stretchable timing techniques for high performance logic design.
High Speed Signaling
This group is responsible for researching high speed signaling (IO) for future microprocessor communication. The research includes both high speed signaling for parallel and serial busses. This group invented the Simultaneous Bidirectional Signaling that was used in the Intel® Teraflops Supercomputer. The current research direction is to further the simultaneous bidirectional signaling technology, and research into future low cost signaling technologies reaching multi-gigahertz clocking rates over wide busses, and over longer distances.
Power Delivery Group
This research involves providing cost-effective power delivery solutions to high performance microprocessors. The challenge lies in delivering 150A at 1V or below with existing system components. The group has proposed low leakage decoupling solutions and cost-saving decoupling capacitor methods. The group currently focuses on high speed voltage regulation and DCDC conversion circuits. The group has demonstrated novel power management techniques with 100x faster regulation with 1000x smaller passive components, compared to existing best known solutions.
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