RESONANT VIRTUAL SUPPLY BOOSTER FOR SYNCHRONOUS DIGITAL CIRCUITS HAVING A PREDICTABLE EVALUATE TIME

摘要

A booster for a digital circuit block provides speed and reliability at lower static power supply voltages, reducing overall power consumption of the circuits. The booster includes a transistor that couples a dynamic power supply node to a static power supply and is disabled in response to a boost clock. An inductor and capacitance, which may be the block power supply shunt capacitance, coupled to the dynamic power supply resonates so that the voltage of the dynamic power supply increases in magnitude to a value greater the static power supply voltage. A boost transistor is included in some embodiments to couple an edge of the clock to the dynamic power supply, increasing the voltage rise. Another aspect of the booster includes multiple boost transistors controlled by different boost clock phases so that the resonant boost circuit is successively stimulated to increase the amount of voltage rise.

主权项

1. A circuit for providing a supply voltage to a dynamic internal power supply node of a group of digital circuits, comprising:
a first transistor for coupling the dynamic internal power supply node to a static power supply that supplies a substantially constant power supply voltage, wherein the first transistor is disabled in response to a first phase of a boost clock that has controlled timing with respect to at least one other clock that synchronizes logic state changes within the group of digital circuits; and an inductor coupled to the dynamic internal power supply node for resonating with at least one capacitance coupled to the dynamic internal power supply node so that when the boost clock begins to disable the first transistor, a voltage of the dynamic internal power supply node increases in magnitude to a value substantially greater than a magnitude of the power supply voltage during a boost interval in which the at least one other clock causes the group of digital circuits to evaluate, and wherein the magnitude of the voltage of the dynamic internal power supply node falls to the magnitude of the power supply voltage before the first phase of the boost clock is complete and energy is stored in the inductor to boost the magnitude of the voltage of the dynamic internal power supply node during a next boost interval.