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Near-threshold computing in FinFET technologies: opportunities for improved voltage scalability

Authors:

Ronald G. Dreslinski,

Trevor Mudge,

Dennis Sylvester,

David BlaauwAuthors Info & Claims

DAC '16: Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Design Automation Conference

Article No.: 76, Pages 1 - 6

https://doi.org/10.1145/2897937.2898049

Published: 05 June 2016 Publication History

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Abstract

In recent years, operating at near-threshold supply voltages has been proposed to improve energy efficiency in circuits, yet decreased efficacy of dynamic voltage scaling has been observed in recent planar technologies. However, foundries have introduced a shift from planar to FinFET fabrication processes. In this paper, we study 7nm FinFET's ability to voltage scale and compare it to planar technologies across three dynamic voltage scaling scenarios. The switch to FinFET allows for a return to strong voltage scalability. We find up to 8.6× higher energy efficiency at NT compared to nominal supply voltage (vs. 4.8× gain in 20nm planar).

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Cited By

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Salamin SAmrouch HHenkel J(2019)Selecting the Optimal Energy Point in Near-Threshold Computing2019 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE)10.23919/DATE.2019.8715211(1691-1696)Online publication date: Mar-2019
https://doi.org/10.23919/DATE.2019.8715211
Harrington RKauppila JMaharrey JHaeffner TSternberg AZhang EBall DNsengiyumva PBhuva BMassengill L(2019)Empirical Modeling of FinFET SEU Cross Sections Across Supply VoltageIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science10.1109/TNS.2019.292062166:7(1427-1432)Online publication date: Jul-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2019.2920621
Kauppila JBall DMaharrey JHarrington RHaeffner TSternberg AAlles MMassengill L(2019)A Bias-Dependent Single-Event-Enabled Compact Model for Bulk FinFET TechnologiesIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science10.1109/TNS.2019.289732966:3(635-642)Online publication date: Mar-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/TNS.2019.2897329
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DAC '16: Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Design Automation Conference

June 2016

1048 pages

ISBN:9781450342360

DOI:10.1145/2897937

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 05 June 2016

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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

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DAC '16

DAC '16: The 53rd Annual Design Automation Conference 2016

June 5 - 9, 2016

Texas, Austin

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,770 of 5,499 submissions, 32%

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https://doi.org/10.23919/DATE.2019.8715211
Harrington RKauppila JMaharrey JHaeffner TSternberg AZhang EBall DNsengiyumva PBhuva BMassengill L(2019)Empirical Modeling of FinFET SEU Cross Sections Across Supply VoltageIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science10.1109/TNS.2019.292062166:7(1427-1432)Online publication date: Jul-2019
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Kauppila JBall DMaharrey JHarrington RHaeffner TSternberg AAlles MMassengill L(2019)A Bias-Dependent Single-Event-Enabled Compact Model for Bulk FinFET TechnologiesIEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science10.1109/TNS.2019.289732966:3(635-642)Online publication date: Mar-2019
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Cheng HLi JDraper JNazarian SWang YBehjat LHan JVelev MChen D(2017)Deadline-Aware Joint Optimization of Sleep Transistor and Supply Voltage for FinFET Based Embedded SystemsProceedings of the Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI 201710.1145/3060403.3060424(427-430)Online publication date: 10-May-2017
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Abstract

References

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Recommendations

Full-VDD and near-threshold performance of 8T FinFET SRAM cells

Independently-controlled-gate FinFET schmitt trigger sub-threshold SRAMs

Process-variation- and random-dopants-induced threshold voltage fluctuations in nanoscale planar MOSFET and bulk FinFET devices

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