SESSION TP 13
SALON 7, Tues, 8
1:30 PM

TECHNOLOGY DIRECTIONS: LOW-TEMPERATURE CIRCUITS AND DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES FOR MICROPROCESSORS

Chair: B. Bidermann, S3 Incorporated, Santa Clara, CA
Associate Chair: T. Tredwell, Eastman Kodak Co.,
Rochester, NY


13.1 CMOS Circuit Technology for
Sub-Ambient Temperature Operation
1:30 PM
I. Aller, K. Bernstein 1, U. Ghoshal 2, H. Schettler, S. Schuster 3,
Y. Taur 3, O. Torreiter
IBM Entwicklung GmbH, Boeblingen, Germany
1IBM Microelectronics, Essex Jct., VT
2IBM Research, Austin Research Lab, Austin, TX
3IBM Research, T. J. Watson Research Ctr., Yorktown Heights, NY

Sub-ambient temperature operation can remove important scaling and performance bottlenecks in 100nm bulk and SOI CMOS technologies. The design and performance of logic circuits, memory circuits, and the back-end interconnection circuits, for sub-ambient temperature server applications are described.


13.2 Refrigeration Technologies for Sub-Ambient
Temperature Operation of Computing Systems
2:00 PM
U. Ghoshal, R. Schmidt 1
IBM Research, Austin Research Lab, Austin, TX
1IBM Server Div., Poughkeepsie, NY

Sub-ambient temperature operation can significantly increase the performance and reliability of computing systems. The advantages and limitations of two important refrigeration technologies - mechanical vapor compression refrigeration and thermoelectric coolers - for server applications are described.


13.3 Threshold Cancelling Logic (TCL): A Post-CMOS Logic Family Scalable Down to 0.02 um
2:30 PM
I. Kohno, T. Sano 1, N. Katoh, K. Yano
Hitachi Central Research Lab, Tokyo, Japan

TCL maintains speed advantages at constant sub-threshold leakage over conventional CMOS down to 0.02 um, by using reduced signal swing, separation of nMOS and pMOS gates, and a scaling rule. Improved speed at low temperatures is experimentally confirmed.

BREAK 3:00 PM


13.4 Optical Probing of Flip-Chip-Packaged
Microprocessors 3:15 PM
T. Eiles, G. Woods, V. Rao
Intel Corp., Santa Clara, CA
Optical probing for circuit analysis of microprocessors uses a pulsed infrared laser focused on the device diffusion, where an electro-optic effect in the depletion region modulates the phase of the reflected light. The reflected light is detected to reconstruct the electrical waveform. Waveforms with sub-50ps timing accuracy and high acquisition speed are collected from processors in 0.18 um technology.


13.5 Non-Invasive Timing Analysis of G6
Microprocessor L1 Cache using Backside
Time-Resolved Photoluminescence 3:45 PM
S. Polonsky, D. Knebel, P. Sanda, M. McManus, W. Huott 1,
A. Pelella 1, D. Manzer, S. Steen, S. Wilson 1, Y. Chan 1
IBM T.J. Watson Research Ctr., Yorktown Heights, NY
1IBM S/390 Div., Poughkeepsie, NY
The non-invasive backside IC characterization technique, picosecond imaging circuit analysis (PICA), is applied to identification and analysis of a cycle-time-limiting condition which occurred in an early pass of the S/390 G60 microprocessor cache. This analysis is fed back to hardware simulation for model tuning and contributes to timely implementation of the S/390 G6 system, and enhanced understanding of manufacturing device models.


13.6 Reduced Substrate Noise Digital Design for
Improving Embedded Analog Performance 4:15 PM
M. Nagata, K. Hijikata, J. Nagai, T. Morie, A. Iwata
Hiroshima Univ., Higashi-Hiroshima, Japan
Reduced supply bounce CMOS suppresses substrate noise amplitude to <=33% of conventional CMOS, by optimizing recharge time constant of local charge reservoirs for fast logic transistions. Substrate noise is measured with 100ps, 100 uV resolution by a latch comparator with a gain-calibrated front-end level shifter having 2GHz BW.


13.7 Accurate In-situ Measurement of Peak Noise and Signal Delay Induced by Interconnect Coupling
4:45 PM
T. Sato, D. Sylvester, Y. Cao, C. Hu
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA
A test chip demonstrates efficacy of an accurate in-situ noise and delay measurement technique. Intended for generating circuit design guidelines and verifying CAD models and tools, the technique experimentally characterizes the noise peak height and the timing slew due to noise. Measured 400mV-peak 1ns-wide pulses are accurate to <40 mV.
CONCLUSION 5:15 PM