Ultra-Low Energy Data Driven Computing Using Asynchronous Micropipelines and Nano-Electro-Mechanical Relays

Alrudainy, HM; Mokhov, A; Xia, F; Yakovlev, A

doi:10.1109/ISVLSI.2017.36

Ultra-Low Energy Data Driven Computing Using Asynchronous Micropipelines and Nano-Electro-Mechanical Relays

Lookup NU author(s): Haider Alrudainy, Dr Andrey Mokhov, Dr Fei Xia, Professor Alex Yakovlev

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Abstract

© 2017 IEEE. Asynchronous logic and power gating are promising techniques for low duty cycle applications which need maximal energy efficiency, which are becoming more common-place with the popularity of wireless and embedded systems. This paper investigates the potential use of Nano/Micro- Electro- Mechanical (N/MEM) switches as the means of power gating asynchronous computation. A systematic optimization of the N/MEMS parameters is performed using finite element analysis (FEA) in the multiphysics COMSOL tool. An asynchronous FIR filter with a 4-phase bundled-data handshake protocol is designed and implemented in the 90nm technology node. The N/MEMS switches are comparatively studied with conventional sleep transistors in a system where both the computation and the timing controls for the asynchronous FIR circuits are power gated appropriately. It is demonstrated that our N/MEMS solution offers a 69% energy improvement when 32-tap FIR filter is power gated at a data rate of 1KHz compared to a 39% savings realized by using sleep transistors in the same design.