Design

Metrics

Digital Integrated Circuits Inverter ee141

DIGITAL GATES
Fundamental Metrics

l Functionality
l Cost
l Reliability, Robustness
l Performance
» Speed (delay)
» Power Consumption
» Energy

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 Cost of Integrated Circuits

l NRE (Non-recurrent engineering) costs

» design time and effort, mask generation
» one-time cost factor
l Recurrent costs
» silicon processing, packaging, test
» proportional to volume
» proportional to chip area

Digital Integrated Circuits Inverter ee141

Some Examples (1994)

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 Reliability
Noise in Digital Integrated Circuits

VDD
v(t)
i(t)

(a) Inductive coupling (b) Capacitive coupling (c) Power and ground
noise

Digital Integrated Circuits Inverter ee141

DC Operation
Voltage Transfer Characteristic

V(y)

V f
OH
V(y)=V(x)

V Switching Threshold
M

VOL

VOL V V(x)
OH

Nominal Voltage Levels

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Mapping between analog and digital signals

V V(y)
"1" OH Slope = -1
V V
IH OH

Undefined
Region
Slope = -1
V
IL VOL
"0"
V
OL V V V(x)
IL IH

Digital Integrated Circuits Inverter ee141

Definition of Noise Margins

"1"
V
OH
NMH
V
IH
Undefined
Region
NML V
V IL
OL

"0"
Gate Output Gate Input

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 Noise Budget

l Allocates gross noise margin to

expected sources of noise
l Sources: supply noise, cross talk,
interference, offset
l Differentiate between fixed and
proportional noise sources

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Impedance -
Another Key Reliability Property

l Absolute noise margin values are deceptive

» a floating node is more easily disturbed
than a node driven by a low impedance (in
terms of voltage)
l Noise immunity is the more important
metric
l Key metrics: Output impedance of the driver
and input impedance of the receiver

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 The Regenerative Property

...
v0 v v v v v v
1 2 3 4 5 6

(a) A chain of inverters.

v1 , v3, ... v 1, v 3 , ...

f(v) finv(v)

finv(v) f(v)

v0, v 2 , ... v0 , v 2, ...

(b) Regenerative gate (c) Non-regenerative gate

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Fan-in and Fan-out

(a) Fan-out N

M
(b) Fan-in M
N

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 The Ideal Gate

Vout

Ri = ∞

Ro = 0
g=− ∞
Fanout = ∞

NMH = NML = VDD/2

Vin

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VTC of Real Inverter

5.0

4.0 NM L

3.0
Vout (V)

2.0
VM
NM H
1.0

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0

Vin (V)

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 Delay Definitions
Vin

50%

t
t t
pHL pLH
Vout
90%

50%

10% t
tf tr

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Ring Oscillator

v v v v v v
0 1 2 3 4 5

v v v
0 1 5

T = 2 × tp × N

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 Power Dissipation

Digital Integrated Circuits Inverter ee141