A 1-V high-speed MTCMOS circuit scheme for power-down applications

A new MTCMOS concept is proposed for power-down applications. This concept realises a new circuit scheme to hold data during the power-down period in which the power is not supplied. Low-power, high-speed performance are achieved by separating the holding circuit from the critical path. A scan register has been developed based on this concept. Using this scheme for an LSI chip, 20-MHz operation at 1.0 V and only a few nA standby current was achieved with 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology.