Reconfigurable regenerator-based interconnect design for ultra-dynamic-voltage-scaling systems

摘要

Ultra-dynamic-voltage-scaling (UDVS) is a compelling technique to use nominal supply voltage (V) for providing peak performance while achieving high energy efficiency by opportunistically using near/sub-threshold Vs under average and low workload. One of the challenges in developing UDVS systems is that circuit fabrics optimized for a specific V can exhibit largely sub-optimal performance and energy efficiency at other Vs. One critical example is the repeater-based interconnect design where the optimal interval of repeater insertion varies with V. In this paper, we propose a reconfigurable interconnect design based on an optimized regenerator to improve performance and energy efficiency across a wide range of Vs.