Power-Efficient Explicit-Pulsed Dual-Edge Triggered Sense-Amplifier Flip-Flops

A novel explicit-pulsed dual-edge triggered sense-amplifier flip-flop (DET-SAFF) for low-power and high-performance applications is presented in this paper. By incorporating the dual-edge triggering mechanism in the new fast latch and employing conditional precharging, the DET-SAFF is able to achieve low-power consumption that has small delay. To further reduce the power consumption at low switching activities, a clock-gated sense-amplifier (CG-SAFF) is engaged. Extensive post-layout simulations proved that the proposed DET-SAFF exhibits both the low-power and high-speed properties, with delay and power reduction of up to 43.3% and 33.5% of those of the prior art, respectively. When the switching activity is less than 0.5, the proposed CG-SAFF demonstrates its superiority in terms of power reduction. During zero input switching activity, CG-SAFF can realize up to 86% in power saving. Lastly, a modification to the proposed circuit has led to an improved common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) DET-SAFF.