A Four-Transistor Level Converter for Dual-Voltage Low-Power Design

Power dissipation in digital circuits has become a primary concern in electronic design. With increasing usage of portable devices, there are severe restrictions being placed on the size, weight and power of batteries. In this work, we propose a design of a dual Vth feedback type four-transistor level converter (DVF4) with reduced delay and power overheads. The use of DVF4 enhances the effectiveness of a dual-voltage low-power design. The level converter can be used in a circuit with multi supply voltage system where low supply gates may feed into high supply gates resulting in lower power and higher speed than with previously published level converters. The proposed level converter is based on a feedback circuit and employs multi-Vth technique. To portray the advantages, we compare the proposed level converter with a previously published level converter for various supply voltages and observe 17.44% to 53% power savings and around 50% delay reduction over the best 32 nm CMOS design available in the literature. The impact of process variations is also examined. When used with dual VDD designs, the new level converter renders up to 61% more energy savings for benchmark circuits in comparison when level converters are not allowed. Furthermore, a level converter flip-flop combination performs better than an existing level converting flip-flop. A single-threshold alternative of the new level converter still remains effective, though over a reduced voltage range.