An Analytical Study Of Temperature Dependence of Scaled CMOS Digital Circuits Using α-Power MOSFET Model

Abstract

Aggressive technological scaling continues to drive ultra-large-scale-integrated chips to higher clock speed. This causes large power consumption leading to considerable thermal generation and on-chip temperature gradient. Though much of the research has been focused on low power design, thermal issues still persist and need attention for enhanced integrated circuit reliability. The present paper outlines a methodology for a first hand estimating effect of temperature on basic CMOS building blocks at ultra deep submicron technology nodes utilizing modified α-power law based MOSFET model. The generalized α-power model is further applied for calculating Zero Temperature Coefficient (ZTC) point that provides temperature-independent operation of high performance and low power digital circuits without the use of conditioning circuits. The performance of basic digital circuits such as Inverter, NAND, NOR and XOR gate has been analyzed and results are compared with BSIM4 with respect to temperature up to 32nm technology node. The error lies within an acceptable range of 5-10%.