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Design and Technology Co-Optimization Utilizing Multi-Bit Flip-Flop Cells

Published: 22 December 2022 Publication History

Abstract

The benefit of multi-bit flip-flop (MBFF) as opposed to single-bit flip-flop is sharing in-cell clock inverters among the master and slave latches in the internal flip-flops of MBFF. Theoretically, the more flip-flops an MBFF has, the more power saving it can achieve. However, in practice, physically increasing the size of MBFF to accommodate many flip-flops imposes two new challenging problems in physical design: (1) non-flexible MBFF cell flipping for multiple D-to-Q signals and (2) unbalanced or wasted use of MBFF footprint space. In this work, we solve the two problems in a way to enhance routability and timing at the placement and routing stages. Precisely, for problem 1, we make the non-flexible MBFF cell flipping to be fully flexible by generating MBFF layouts supporting diverse D-to-Q flow directions in the detailed placement to improve routability and for problem 2, we enhance the setup and clock-to-Q delay on timing critical flip-flops in MBFF through gate upsizing (i.e., transistor folding) by using the unused space in MBFF to improve timing slack at the post-routing stage. Through experiments with benchmark circuits, it is shown that our proposed design and technology co-optimization (DTCO) flow using MBFFs that solves problems 1 and 2 is very promising.

References

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I. Jiang, C. Chang, and Y. Yang, "Integra: Fast multibit flip-flop clustering for clock power saving," IEEE TCAD, vol. 31, no. 2, 2012.
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D. Yi and T. Kim, "Allocation of multi-bit flip-flops in logic synthesis for power optimization," in IEEE/ACM ICCAD, 2016.
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Cited By

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  • (2024)Recent Research in Design and Technology Co-Optimization with Multi-Bit Flip-Flops2024 IEEE 67th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS)10.1109/MWSCAS60917.2024.10658994(33-36)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
  • (2023)Challenges on Design and Technology Co-Optimization: Design Automation Perspective2023 IEEE 66th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS)10.1109/MWSCAS57524.2023.10405868(212-216)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2023
  • (2023)Optimizing Timing for Multi-bit Flip-Flop Intensive Designs Compatible with Commercial EDA Flow2023 20th International SoC Design Conference (ISOCC)10.1109/ISOCC59558.2023.10396028(347-348)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2023
  • Show More Cited By

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            cover image ACM Conferences
            ICCAD '22: Proceedings of the 41st IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design
            October 2022
            1467 pages
            ISBN:9781450392174
            DOI:10.1145/3508352
            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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            Published: 22 December 2022

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            ICCAD '22: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design
            October 30 - November 3, 2022
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            View all
            • (2024)Recent Research in Design and Technology Co-Optimization with Multi-Bit Flip-Flops2024 IEEE 67th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS)10.1109/MWSCAS60917.2024.10658994(33-36)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
            • (2023)Challenges on Design and Technology Co-Optimization: Design Automation Perspective2023 IEEE 66th International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS)10.1109/MWSCAS57524.2023.10405868(212-216)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2023
            • (2023)Optimizing Timing for Multi-bit Flip-Flop Intensive Designs Compatible with Commercial EDA Flow2023 20th International SoC Design Conference (ISOCC)10.1109/ISOCC59558.2023.10396028(347-348)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2023
            • (2023)Allocation of Multi-bit Flip-Flops Targeting Low-Power Chips2023 20th International SoC Design Conference (ISOCC)10.1109/ISOCC59558.2023.10395980(121-122)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2023

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