Temperature-Robust Performance Yield through Supply Voltage Selection

In nanoscale system design, increased susceptibility to variation makes robustness an important concern, along with speed and power. To consider robustness amidst variations, fixed performance parameters can be replaced with their distributions during the design process. In this paper, supply voltage selection is used to manage the trade-offs among speed, power, and temperature robustness. Optimal supply voltages are found for different performance goals by considering the variance of the design as well as the mean performance. Furthermore, overall design margins can be increased by finding the best combinations of means and variances in each design decision.