Sub-μW standby power, <18 µW/DMIPS@25MHz MCU with embedded atom-switch programmable logic and ROM

A non-volatile programmable logic (NPL) with atom switch significantly accelerates performance of micro-controller unit. A low-power 32bit-CPU using a 65 nm-node Silicon-on-Thin-Box (SOTB) CMOS performs 1.95 DMIPS/MHz and 33 µW/MHz on 25 MHz and V
DD
=0.4V. When a software process in the CPU is offloaded to NPL, the 9 times faster processing speed and 3 times higher energy efficiency are realized. A reverse body-bias on SOTB CMOS and a power-off of NPL block suppress a standby power down to 0.7 µW.