Research on advanced low-power technology of LSI chips

Abstract

Power consumption of LSI chips is one of the biggest concerns in modern computers from smartphones up to high-end servers. In particular, as transistors in integrated circuits get smaller, they become "leaky" and thereby leakage power becomes a major component in the total power dissipation. This paper gives an overview of research activities in my lab to study and develop a dynamic control technique to power on/off execution circuits within a microprocessor chip to reduce leakage power. The technique is composed of novel approaches ranging from the computer architecture level through the circuit level down to the LSI implementation level. Measurement results from fabricated test chips are also demonstrated in the paper.