A yield improvement technique in severe process, voltage, and temperature variations and extreme voltage scaling

Drastic yield reduction at sub/nearthreshold voltage domains, caused by the severe process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations in this region, is challenging characteristic of recent nanometre sensory chips. Using a variation sensitive and ultra-low-power design, this paper proposes a novel technique capable of sensing and responding to PVT variations by providing an appropriate forward body bias (FBB) so that the delay variations and timing yield of whole system as well as energy-delay product (EDP) are improved. Theoretical analysis for the error probability, confirmed by post-layout HSPICE simulations for an 8-bit Kogge-Stone adder and also two large Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) processors, shows considerable improvements in severe PVT variations and extreme voltage scaling. For this adder, for example, the proposed technique can reduce error rate from 50% to 1% at 0.4 V. In another implementation, in average similar to 7x delay variation and similar to 4x EDP improvement is gained after this technique is applied to an iterative 1024pt, radix 4, complex FFT while working in sub/nearthreshold voltage region of 0.3 V-0.6 V. Also, pipelined version of the FIT consumed only 412pJ/FFT at 0.4 V while processing 125 K FFT/sec. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.