High-performance and low-power challenges for sub-70 nm microprocessor circuits

CMOS technology scaling is becoming difficult beyond 70 nm node, raising new design challenges for high-performance and low-power microprocessors. This paper discusses some of the key paradigm shifts required. Circuit techniques to combat (i) increasing switching and leakage power dissipation, (ii) poor leakage tolerance of large-signal cache arrays and register files, and (iii) worsening global on-chip interconnect scaling trend, are described.