CMOS process-dependent near-threshold voltage regulation
AssigneeBoard of Regents, The University of Texas System
InventorsShuza Binzaid, Avadhoot Herlekar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is a voltage regulator for an integrated circuit. The voltage regulator can be configured to regulate a supply voltage provided to the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit can operate a near threshold value irrespective of a magnitude of the supply voltage. The voltage regulator can include a single Field Effect Transistor (FET) based circuit. The single FET based circuit can be configured to regulate the supply voltage.
Claims20
A voltage regulator for an integrated circuit, wherein the voltage regulator is configured to regulate a supply voltage provided to the integrated circuit such that the integrated circuit operates at its near threshold value irrespective of a magnitude of the supply voltage, wherein the supply voltage is regulated via the voltage regulator based at least in part on an input reference, the input reference being based at least in part on a process threshold voltage, wherein a power usage of the integrated circuit is reduced at a quadratic ratio based at least in part on a reduction in the supply voltage.
A system comprising:
- an integrated circuit comprising a near threshold voltage;
- a single Field Effect Transistor (FET) based circuit configured to regulate a supply voltage to provide the near threshold voltage to the integrated circuit, wherein the supply voltage is regulated via the single FET based circuit based at least in part on an input reference, the input reference being based at least in part on a process threshold voltage;
- and
- a fixed number of cascaded P-N junctions, wherein a voltage reduction across each of the fixed number of cascaded P-N junctions is based at least in part on a silicon process parameters of the integrated circuit.
A method comprising:
- connecting a power supply of a chip to an input of a voltage regulator;
- connecting an output of the voltage regulator to a voltage supply input of an integrated circuit;
- receiving, via the voltage regulator, a supply voltage, the voltage regulator comprising a single Field Effect Transistor (FET) based circuit;
- generating, via the voltage regulator, a voltage proximate to a near threshold voltage (NTV) region of the integrated circuit;
- supplying, via the voltage regulator, the voltage to the integrated circuit and
- reducing, via the voltage regulator, a power usage of the integrated circuit at a quadratic ratio based at least in part on reducing the supply voltage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.