METHOD FOR SELECTING NATURAL FREQUENCY IN RESONANT CLOCK DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS WITH NO INDUCTOR OVERHEAD

摘要

An inductor architecture for resonant clock distribution networks is proposed. This architecture allows for the adjustment of the natural frequency of a resonant clock distribution network by selective decoupling of inductors, so that it achieves energy-efficient operation at multiple clock frequencies. The proposed architecture is primarily targeted at the design of resonant clock networks with integrated inductors and exhibits no area overheads. Such an architecture is generally applicable to semiconductor devices with multiple clock frequencies, and high-performance and low-power clocking requirements such as microprocessors, ASICs, and SOCs. Moreover, it is applicable to the binning of semiconductor devices according to achievable performance levels.