High-performance and Low-power Clock Branch Sharing Pseudo-NMOS Level Converting Flip-flop

Abstract

Multi-Supply voltage design using Cluster Voltage Scaling (CVS) is an effective way to reduce power consumption without performance degradation. One of the major issues in this method is performance and power overheads due to insertion of Level Converting Flip-Flops (LCFF) at the interface from low-supply to high-supply clusters to simultaneously perform latching and level conversion. In this paper, an improved version of clocked pseudo-NMOS LCFF called Clock Branch Sharing pseudo-NMOS LCFF has been proposed, which combines the Conditional Discharge technique, pseudo-NMOS technique and Clock Branch Sharing technique. Based on Simulation results, the proposed flip-flop exhibits up to 32.5% delay reduction and saves power up to 8.1% as compared to clocked pseudo-NMOS LCFF.