Low power high-speed multithreshold voltage CMOS bus architectures

Low power, high-speed bus architectures, based on low swing voltage technique, using multithreshold voltage transistors are proposed in this paper. Three different classes of driver/repeater/receiver circuits are introduced. The driver circuits are comprised of high threshold voltage MOSFET transistors, in order to reduce their output swing level voltage. For re-pulling up the low swing voltage to full swing, innovated high-speed, cross-coupled latch, voltage receiver circuits are used. In applications having high load capacitance due to long interconnections, novel repeater circuits based also on multithreshold voltage technology are introduced. Using 0.5 lm multithreshold voltage process technology and 1 V supply voltage, SPICE measurements showed up to 45% improvement in the power delay product. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.