A Dual-VDD Boosted Pulsed Bus Technique for Low Power and Low Leakage Operation

In this paper, we propose a new dual-VDD bus technique that is well suited for low power operation. This technique adapts a static pulsed bus architecture to use dual-VDD power supplies. During quiescent periods, the bus system idles at the lower of the two VDD supplies, thereby lowering static power dissipation. When actively transitioning, the inverters in the bus system are temporarily boosted to the higher VDD supply to provide the needed drive strength for performance. Since the VDD boosting is done in a pulsed manner, the bus system is in a high VDD state only when required, ensuring lower power operation without sacrificing performance. This technique yields up to a 50% reduction in total power over traditional static buses and up to a 35% reduction in total power over standard static pulsed buses, with a 12-15% delay improvement.