A 4 GHz Non-Resonant Clock Driver With Inductor-Assisted Energy Return to Power Grid

作者：Alimadadi Mehdi^*; Sheikhaei Samad; Lemieux Guy; Mirabbasi Shahriar; Dunford William; Palmer Patrick

来源：IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I-Regular Papers, 2010, 57(8): 2099-2108.

DOI：10.1109/TCSI.2009.2037850

• Charge recycling
• energy recycling
• energy recovery
• full-bridge converter
• low-power clock driver
• multi-GHz clock
• switching DC-DC converter

Power consumption of a multi-GHz local clock driver is reduced by returning energy stored in the clock-tree load capacitance back to the on-chip power-distribution grid. We call this type of return energy recycling. To achieve a nearly square clock waveform, the energy is transferred in a non-resonant way using an on-chip inductor in a configuration resembling a full-bridge DC-DC converter. A zero-voltage switching technique is implemented in the clock driver to reduce dynamic power loss associated with the high switching frequencies. A prototype implemented in 90 nm CMOS shows a power savings of 35% at 4 GHz. The area needed for the inductor in this new clock driver is about 6% of a local clock region.

• 出版日期2010-8