Techniques for aggressive supply voltage scaling and efficient regulation [CMOS digital circuits]

Aggressive voltage scaling to 1 V and below through technology, circuit, and architecture optimization is the key to low-power design. Threshold voltage scaling enables aggressive supply scaling but increases leakage power. Technology and circuit trends to control idle leakage power are presented including MTCMOS, variable V_T bulk-CMOS, and variable V_T SOI. Power can also be reduced by adaptively varying the supply voltage in applications where the computational workload varies with time. Aggressive voltage and power level scaling requires efficient DC-DC conversion circuitry and in some cases, it is necessary to embed this function in the processor