Chapter 3

ULTRALOW- POWER CIRCUIT DESIGN

FOR FD - SOI DEVICES

3.1 Introduction

The use of mobile systems with communication functions has expanded rapidly
in recent years. Considering the coming era of ubiquitous or pervasive network
computing, the number and variety of mobile units is expected to increase much
more. This type of equipment requires further miniaturization and longer
battery life, and will eventually evolve into self-powered mobile systems.
Maintenance-free systems without a battery would be ideal terminals for
ubiquitous network computing.

Ultralow-power circuit design is essential to meet these requirements. For

CMOS LSIs, which are the key components of mobile systems, lowering the
supply voltage and the use of SOI devices are the most effective design
approaches to reducing power dissipation. In this regard, multi-threshold (MT)
CMOS/SOI circuits, which are suitable for supply voltages as low as 0.5 V,
have already been developed [3.1], [3.2]. This circuit technology has been
extended to LSIs for mobile equipment; and various digital and analog
components (CPU, memory, analog/RF circuit, DC-DC converter) for
ultralow-power mobile systems have been developed [3.3].

This chapter first describes the target application we will use as an example
and the ultralow-power LSIs used make it, and explains the key to designing

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this type of LSI. Second, ultralow-voltage circuit techniques for reducing the
power dissipation of LSIs are examined. Finally, the reasons why FD-SOI
devices are suitable for ultralow-voltage digital and analog/RF circuits are
discussed.

3.2 Ultralow-Power Short-Range Wireless Systems

Figure 3.1 shows where the performance of our target application falls in
relation to that of other types of applications. SOI devices are already being
used in ultrahigh-speed and microwatt applications like servers and watches,
but not in wireless mobile equipment like PDAs, which still have power
dissipations ranging from 100 mW to 1 W. Our aim is to make the power
dissipation about two orders of magnitude less than that of conventional LSIs;
and our target application is a short-range wireless system. The LSIs for this
system should operate at a speed of over 100 MHz and have a power dissipation
from 1 to 10 mW. LSIs with these specifications will certainly be required for
future mobile systems, such as fourth-generation (4G) wireless terminals; and
they will pave the way to batteryless mobile systems.

Server,
WS,PC
1G
PDA
Operating speed (Hz)

Target

1M Short-range
wireless system
Watch

1K

1u 1m 1 10 100
Power consumption (W)

Fig. 3.1 Target application of ultralow-power LSIs.

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