Techniques for Clock Skew Reduction over Intra-Die

Process, Voltage, and Temperature Variations

by

JEFF MUELLER

M.B.A., University of Texas at Austin, 2001

M.S.E.E., University of Illinois at Urbana, 1995
B.S.E.E., University of Missouri at Rolla, 1991

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE

REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
The Faculty of Graduate Studies
(Electrical and Computer Engineering)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

(Vancouver)
September 2010

© Jeff Mueller, 2010

 Abstract
Synchronous clock distribution continues to be the dominant timing methodology for
very large scale integration circuit designs. As processes shrink, clock speeds increase, and
die sizes grow, an increasingly larger percentage of the clock period is being lost to skew
and jitter. New techniques to reduce clock skew and jitter must be deployed to utilize the
faster clock frequencies possible with future process technologies, especially in the presence
of on-chip process-voltage-temperature (PVT) variations.
This dissertation first proposes a pre-silicon design modification to symmetric clock
buffers of traditional clock distribution networks. Specifically, clock performance is
improved by targeting the critical clock edge (the edge activating rising edge-triggered flip-
flops) while relaxing the requirements of the non-critical edge. This system uses alternating,
asymmetric clock buffers to focus inverter resources on only one edge of the clock pulse;
hence, it is called Single Edge Clocking (SEC). A novel re-design of the traditional clock
buffer is proposed as a drop-in replacement for existing clock distribution networks, yielding
timing performance improvements of over 20% in latency and skew, and up to 30% in jitter;
alternatively, these timing advantages could be traded off to reduce clock buffer area and
power by 33% and 12%, respectively.
PVT variations, especially intra-die, increasingly upset the distribution of a
synchronized clock signal, even in properly balanced clock tree networks. Hence, active
clock deskewing becomes necessary to tune out unwanted clock skew after chip fabrication.
This dissertation proposes a post-silicon autonomous deskewing system using tunable
buffers to dynamically reduce clock skew. The operation of a specially designed phase
detector is described, and four such phase detectors are used to construct a stable,
autonomously locking Quad Ring Tuning (QRT) configuration that effectively links together
four distributed Delay-Locked Loops (DLLs) without the need for any system-level
controller. This cyclic, unidirectional, self-controlled, quad-DLL ring tuning technique is
then implemented hierarchically to dynamically adjust clock signal delays across an entire
chip during normal circuit operation. A simple form of the two-level QRT system is
presented for a generic H-tree distribution network, demonstrating stable locking behavior
and more than 50% average reduction in full-chip clock skew.

ii
 Preface
The research presented in this dissertation has been previously published in two
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Conference papers and will soon be
published in an IEEE Journal paper, as detailed below.

The research covered in Chapter 3 has been published in: J. Mueller and R. Saleh,
“Single Edge Clock (SEC) distribution for improved latency, skew, and jitter performance,”
Proceedings of Very Large Scale Integration Design (VLSID) Conference, pp. 214-9, Jan.
2008.

Most of the research covered in Chapter 4 has been published in: J. Mueller and R.
Saleh, “A tunable clock buffer for intra-die PVT compensation in Single-Edge Clock (SEC)
distribution networks,” Proceedings of International Symposium on Quality Electronic
Design (ISQED), pp. 572-7, Mar. 2008.

The research covered in Chapter 5 will be published in: J. Mueller and R. Saleh,
"Autonomous, multi-level ring tuning scheme for post-silicon active clock deskewing over
intra-die variations," to be published in IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration
(TVLSI) Systems, 14 pages, 2010.

These three papers and this dissertation present research conducted by "the author",
Jeff Mueller, in collaboration with "the supervisor", Dr. Resve Saleh, who provided
consultation on research and editing assistance on publications.

iii
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... ii 

PREFACE..........................................................................................................................................iii 

TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................................................. iv 

LIST OF TABLES ..........................................................................................................................viii 

LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................................... ix 

LIST OF SYMBOLS......................................................................................................................... xi 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. xii 

CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW................................................................... 1 
1.1  MOTIVATION ......................................................................................................................................... 1 
1.2  SYNCHRONOUS CLOCK DESIGN ISSUES ............................................................................................2 
1.3  PVT VARIATIONS ................................................................................................................................. 5 
1.4  SKEW AND JITTER REDUCTION AND COMPENSATION ................................................................... 7 
1.5  RESEARCH STATEMENT ...................................................................................................................... 9 
1.6  THESIS ORGANIZATION .................................................................................................................... 10 

CHAPTER 2 : SYNCHRONOUS CLOCK BACKGROUND .......................................................11 
2.1  CLOCK FUNCTION AND DESIGN ISSUES ......................................................................................... 11 
2.1.1  Clock Source................................................................................................................................ 12 
2.1.2  Flip­Flop Timing Issues .......................................................................................................... 12 
2.1.3  Clock Distribution Network Design .................................................................................. 15 
2.1.3.1  Basics of Clock Networks ............................................................................................................................15 
2.1.3.2  Basics of Clock Buffer Design ....................................................................................................................16 
2.1.3.3  Other Clock Design Issues...........................................................................................................................19 
2.1.4  Clock Timing Metrics .............................................................................................................. 19 
2.2  PVT VARIATIONS AND SKEW ......................................................................................................... 22 
2.3  SKEW REDUCTION TECHNIQUES .................................................................................................... 24 
2.3.1  Pre­silicon Techniques ........................................................................................................... 24 
2.3.1.1  Balancing Clock Distribution Wires........................................................................................................25 
2.3.1.2  Balancing Clock Buffers ...............................................................................................................................26 
2.3.2  Post­silicon Techniques (Active De­skewing)............................................................... 28 
2.3.2.1  Multiple Tuning Zone Synchronization ................................................................................................30 

iv
 2.3.2.2  Cyclic Architecture.........................................................................................................................................33 
2.3.2.3  Acyclic Architecture ......................................................................................................................................35 
2.4  BACKGROUND SUMMARY ................................................................................................................. 37 

CHAPTER 3 : SINGLE­EDGE CLOCKING (SEC) .....................................................................39 
3.1  IMPROVED CLOCK PERIOD UTILIZATION WITH SEC.................................................................. 40 
3.1.1  Performance Trade­off between Clock Edges .............................................................. 41 
3.1.2  Practical Application of SEC................................................................................................ 45 
3.2  SEC BUFFER DESIGN CONSTRAINTS ............................................................................................. 47 
3.2.1  SEC Capacitance Constraint with Drop­in Compatibility ....................................... 48 
3.2.2  SEC Asymmetrical Inverter Pairs ...................................................................................... 48 
3.2.3  SEC Inverters' Beta Modeling.............................................................................................. 50 
3.2.4  Layout Area Considerations ................................................................................................ 53 
3.3  ANALYSIS OF ASYMMETRIC SEC BUFFERS ................................................................................... 54 
3.3.1  Voltage Transfer Characteristics....................................................................................... 54 
3.3.2  Noise Margins ............................................................................................................................ 56 
3.4  FULL‐CHIP SEC DISTRIBUTION DESIGN ....................................................................................... 58 
3.4.1  H­tree Buffer Sizing ................................................................................................................. 58 
3.4.2  Simulation Model ­­ Single Branch Model ..................................................................... 59 
3.5  FULL‐CHIP SEC PERFORMANCE RESULTS.................................................................................... 60 
3.5.1  Latency Improvements........................................................................................................... 62 
3.5.2  Skew Improvements ................................................................................................................ 63 
3.5.3  Jitter Improvements ................................................................................................................ 64 
3.5.4  Power Consumption and Layout Area............................................................................. 65 
3.6  FULL‐CHIP SEC CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................... 67 

CHAPTER 4 : TUNABLE SEC BUFFER DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS.............................69 
4.1  TUNABLE SEC BUFFERS .................................................................................................................. 69 
4.1.1  Tunable Buffer Design............................................................................................................ 70 
4.1.1.1  Capacitive Load ...............................................................................................................................................70 
4.1.1.2  Starved Inverter ..............................................................................................................................................71 

4.1.2  Tunable SEC Simulation Results ........................................................................................ 74 

4.1.2.1  Single Branch Model (SBM) .......................................................................................................................74 
4.1.2.2  Tuning Range Waveforms ..........................................................................................................................75 
4.1.2.3  Area and Power Comparisons...................................................................................................................77 

4.1.3  PVT Variation Results............................................................................................................. 78 

v
 4.1.4  Tunable SEC Buffer Limitations and Conclusions ...................................................... 79 
4.2  INDIVIDUAL SEC BUFFERS FOR CLOCK EDGE ADJUSTMENTS .................................................. 80 
4.2.1  Single SEC Buffer Substitution............................................................................................ 81 
4.2.2  Centering Tunable Buffers with SEC ................................................................................ 83 
4.2.3  Individual SEC Buffer Limitations and Conclusions .................................................. 85 
4.3  SEC APPLICATION LIMITATIONS AND SUMMARY ....................................................................... 86 

CHAPTER 5 : RING TUNING FOR POST­SILICON CLOCK DESKEWING ........................88 
5.1  OVERVIEW OF ACTIVE CLOCK DESKEWING ................................................................................. 89 
5.2  THREE COMPONENTS FOR THE DESKEW LOOPS ......................................................................... 90 
5.2.1  Up/Down Detector (UDD) .................................................................................................... 91 
5.2.2  Thermometer Code Generator (TCG) .............................................................................. 95 
5.2.3  Tunable Buffer (TB) ................................................................................................................ 99 
5.3  DESKEW LOOP DESIGN FOR STABLE OPERATION....................................................................... 99 
5.3.1  Deskew Loop Delay Analysis..............................................................................................100 
5.3.2  Measurement and Adjustment Resolutions ................................................................101 
5.4  MULTIPLE DESKEW LOOP CONNECTION FOR RING TUNING ..................................................105 
5.4.1  The Case for Ring Tuning over Acyclic Tuning..........................................................105 
5.4.1.1  Avoiding the Global Controller ..............................................................................................................106 
5.4.1.2  Avoiding Cyclic Instabilities....................................................................................................................109 
5.4.1.3  Improving Skew Bound Hierarchically ..............................................................................................111 

5.4.2  Single­level Ring Tuning for H­tree................................................................................112 
5.4.2.1  Independent Tuning Zone Selection ...................................................................................................113 
5.4.2.2  Ring Tuning Connection for Four Zones............................................................................................115 

5.4.3  Hierarchical Ring Tuning for H­tree..............................................................................118 
5.5  H‐TREE RING TUNING SIMULATION RESULTS ..........................................................................120 
5.5.1  Full H­tree Netlist...................................................................................................................121 
5.5.2  PVT Variation Modeling ......................................................................................................122 
5.5.3  SEC­only Improvements.......................................................................................................128 
5.5.4  SEC + QRT­2 Improvements...............................................................................................129 
5.5.5  SEC + QRT­2&3 Improvements .........................................................................................134 
5.6  QRT SUMMARY AND LIMITATIONS .............................................................................................139 

CHAPTER 6 : SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND FUTURE WORK ................................. 142 

6.1  PRE‐SILICON SKEW REDUCTION ..................................................................................................143 
6.1.1  Summary of Contributions .................................................................................................143 

vi
 6.1.2  Limitations ................................................................................................................................144 
6.1.3  Proposed Future Work.........................................................................................................145 
6.2  POST‐SILICON SKEW COMPENSATION ........................................................................................146 
6.2.1  Summary of Contributions .................................................................................................146 
6.2.2  Limitations ................................................................................................................................148 
6.2.3  Proposed Future Work.........................................................................................................149 

REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 151 

vii
 List of Tables
TABLE 1‐1 : CLOCK PERIOD LOST TO SKEW FROM FIGURE 1.1 DATA ............................................................................................ 2 
TABLE 3‐1 : SEC BUFFER DEGRADATION FACTOR CHOICES ............................................................................................................ 46 
TABLE 3‐2 : MULTIPLE‐SOURCE NOISE MARGINS ........................................................................................................................... 57 
TABLE 4‐1 : DELAY VALUES FOR ALL POSSIBLE TBIT SETTINGS ..................................................................................................... 73 
TABLE 5‐1 : COMPARISON OF ACYCLIC METHOD TO TWO RING TUNING METHODS ...............................................................107 
TABLE 5‐2 : PVT VARIATIONS USED IN SIMULATIONS ...................................................................................................................126 
TABLE 5‐3 : OVERALL CLOCK SKEW RESULTS FOR SEC VERSUS TC............................................................................................128 
TABLE 5‐4 : TUNABLE BUFFER BITS STATE AND UP/DN SIGNAL OVER LOCKING TIME ..........................................................132 
TABLE 5‐5 : OVERALL CLOCK SKEW RESULTS FOR QRT ...............................................................................................................133 
TABLE 5‐6 : SUB‐QUADRANT SKEW RESULTS FOR QRT................................................................................................................138 

viii
 List of Figures
FIGURE 1.1 : CLOCK SKEW OVER PROCESS TECHNOLOGY (FROM [2]) ............................................................................................. 1 
FIGURE 1.2 : BASIC CLOCK DISTRIBUTION NETWORKS: H‐TREE, GRID, AND HYBRID (FROM [7])............................................ 3 
FIGURE 1.3 : PROCESS VARIATION OVER ONE DIE FROM A WAFER (FROM [16]) ........................................................................... 5 
FIGURE 1.4 : CONCENTRIC CIRCLES REPRESENTING P, V, AND/OR T VARIATIONS (FROM [2]) .................................................. 6 
FIGURE 2.1 : IDEAL SYNCHRONOUS CLOCK PERIOD (FROM [5])................................................................................................... 13 
FIGURE 2.2 : RISING EDGE‐TRIGGERED D FLIP‐FLOP (FROM [30]) .............................................................................................. 13 
FIGURE 2.3 : FLIP‐FLOP SETUP AND HOLD TIME DEFINITIONS (FROM [30])............................................................................... 14 
FIGURE 2.4 : CLOCK TREE COMPONENTS [ROOT, BRANCHES, AND LEAVES] (FROM [5]) ........................................................ 15 
FIGURE 2.5 : TYPICAL CMOS INVERTER (FROM [30])................................................................................................................... 17 
FIGURE 2.6 : TYPICAL SYNCHRONOUS CLOCK NETWORK [H‐TREE AND FFS] (FROM [7]) ...................................................... 19 
FIGURE 2.7 : CLOCK LATENCY, SKEW, AND JITTER.  (#1 = ROOT BUFFER AND #4 = LEAF BUFFER) ...................................... 20 
FIGURE 2.8 : PVT VARIATION SKEW MODELING (FROM [36])..................................................................................................... 23 
FIGURE 2.9 : BALANCED H‐TREE FOR SKEW REDUCTION (FROM [19]) ....................................................................................... 25 
FIGURE 2.10 : BALANCED BUFFERS FOR REDUCED SKEW (FROM [45]) ...................................................................................... 26 
FIGURE 2.11 : A BASIC POST‐SILICON SKEW COMPENSATION SYSTEM (FROM [49]) ................................................................. 30 
FIGURE 2.12 : PREVIOUS MULTIPLE PLL RING ARCHITECTURE (FROM [57]) ............................................................................ 33 
FIGURE 2.13 : PREVIOUS ACYCLIC MULTIPLE PLL CONNECTIONS (FROM [61]) ........................................................................ 36 
FIGURE 3.1 : TRADITIONAL AND MODIFIED DEFINITION OF PULSE WIDTH................................................................................ 41 
FIGURE 3.2 : CLOCK PERIOD UTILIZATION ........................................................................................................................................ 42 
FIGURE 3.3 : 4‐LEVEL H‐TREE............................................................................................................................................................. 46 
FIGURE 3.4 : FASTER AND SHARPER EDGES FOR SEC INVERTERS (INVT VERSUS INVR & INVF) .......................................... 50 
FIGURE 3.5 : TRISE AND TFALL (LEFT) AND Η (RIGHT) VERSUS BUFFER Β................................................................................... 51 
FIGURE 3.6 : RELATIVE TRANSISTOR SIZING FOR TC & SEC CLOCK BUFFERS ............................................................................ 52 
FIGURE 3.7 : LAYOUT OF THREE INVERTERS (INVT, INVR, INVF)............................................................................................... 54 
FIGURE 3.8 : VTC AND CURRENT CURVES (INVT, INVR, INVF) ................................................................................................... 55 
FIGURE 3.9 : SBM SCHEMATIC ............................................................................................................................................................ 60 
FIGURE 3.10 : TIMING WAVEFORMS FOR TC AND TWO CHOICES OF SEC .................................................................................... 61 
FIGURE 3.11 : LATENCY VERSUS BUFFER SIZE .................................................................................................................................. 62 
FIGURE 3.12 : WORST‐CASE SKEW VERSUS BUFFER SIZE ................................................................................................................ 64 
FIGURE 3.13 : AVERAGE TRANSITION TIME VERSUS BUFFER SIZE ................................................................................................. 65 
FIGURE 3.14 : AVERAGE IDD VERSUS BUFFER SIZE .......................................................................................................................... 66 
FIGURE 3.15 : PERCENT IMPROVEMENT OF SEC OVER TC ............................................................................................................ 68 
FIGURE 4.1 : CAPACITIVE LOAD DELAY BUFFER ................................................................................................................................ 71 
FIGURE 4.2 : SINGLE‐SIDED STARVED INVERTER DELAY BUFFER ................................................................................................... 72 

ix
FIGURE 4.3 : SBM SCHEMATIC WITH TUNABLE BUFFER (TB)...................................................................................................... 75 
FIGURE 4.4 : TSI AND TCP WAVEFORMS OVER 4 DELAY SETTINGS ................................................................................................ 76 
FIGURE 4.5 : PROCESS, VOLTAGE, AND TEMPERATURE TUNING RANGES ..................................................................................... 78 
FIGURE 4.6 : PRE‐TUNING SKEW VERSUS POST‐TUNING SKEW ...................................................................................................... 79 
FIGURE 4.7 : CENTERING THE SEC TUNABLE BUFFER ..................................................................................................................... 84 
FIGURE 5.1 : DLL DESIGN FOR USE IN RING TUNING ........................................................................................................................ 91 
FIGURE 5.2 : UDD SCHEMATIC ............................................................................................................................................................ 92 
FIGURE 5.3 : UDD LOCKING REGION .................................................................................................................................................. 94 
FIGURE 5.4 : LOGICAL OPERATION ON MULTIPLE UDDS ............................................................................................................... 95 
FIGURE 5.5 : TCG SIMPLIFIED FUNCTIONAL SCHEMATIC [74]....................................................................................................... 96 
FIGURE 5.6 : PULSE GENERATOR FOR TCG ....................................................................................................................................... 98 
FIGURE 5.7 : LOOP DELAY CONSIDERATION FOR STABILITY ..........................................................................................................100 
FIGURE 5.8 : STABLE LOCKING OVER PVT VARIATIONS ................................................................................................................102 
FIGURE 5.9 : FOUR POSSIBLE TUNING ZONES TBS AT (A) LEVEL‐1A, (B) LEVEL‐2, (C) 2A, (D) 3 .......................................114 
FIGURE 5.10 : H‐TREE HIERARCHY (LEFT HALF ONLY).................................................................................................................115 
FIGURE 5.11 : UDD CONNECTIONS...................................................................................................................................................116 
FIGURE 5.12 : QRT LEVEL‐2 OPERATION .......................................................................................................................................117 
FIGURE 5.13 : QRT LEVEL‐2&3 OPERATION .................................................................................................................................119 
FIGURE 5.14 : LOCATION OF SPATIAL VARIATIONS ........................................................................................................................124 
FIGURE 5.15 : TRANSIENT SIMULATION WAVEFORMS OF QRT‐2 OPERATION .........................................................................131 
FIGURE 5.16 : SURFACE PLOTS OF H‐TREE LEAF CLOCKS FOR FOUR CLOCK DESIGNS ...............................................................136 

x
 List of Symbols

β beta of an inverter (=WP/WN)

η degradation factor of SEC (=tnegl/tcrit)
bbit1, bbit2 binary tuning bits for a tcp-INVf
DLL delay locked loop
FF flip-flop
INVf inverter used as falling edge clock buffer in SEC
INVr inverter used as rising edge clock buffer in SEC
INVt inverter used as clock buffer in TC
ISF impulse sensitivity function (a measure of jitter)
LT/LB/RB/RT four quadrants of QRT
(left-top, left-bottom, right-bottom, and right-top)
M.C. Monte Carlo simulation
PLL phase locked loop
PVT variations created by process, voltage, and temperature
PW pulse width of the clock signal
QRT quad ring tuning (i.e. RT with four tuning zones)
QRT-2 single level QRT implemented at clock level-2
QRT-2&3 hierarchical QRT implemented at clock level-2 and level-3
r.s.a. range sharing algorithm
RT ring tuning
Sth skew threshold of UDD
SBM single branch model
SEC single edge clocking
ss step size of TB
s.w.a. spinning wheel algorithm
tcp-INVf tunable INVF buffer delayed by load capacitance
tsi-INVf tunable INVf buffer delayed by a starved inverter
tbit1, tbit2, tbit3 thermometer code tuning bits for a tsi-INVf
tcrit critical edge transition time of the clock signal
tnegl neglected edge transition time of the clock signal
Tclk period of the clock signal
TB tunable buffer
TC traditional clocking
TCG thermometer code generator
UDD up/down detector
WN width of the NMOS device of an inverter
WP width of the PMOS device of an inverter

xi
 Acknowledgements

Thanks to everyone who has helped me along the way!

Special thanks go to: Supervisor: Dr. Resve Saleh

Co-supervisor: Dr. Shahriar Mirabbasi
Committee Members: Drs. Steve Wilton and John Madden
Head's Nominee: Dr. Mark Greensteet
Chair: Dr. Andre Ivanov.

Also, thanks to our SoC Lab experts: Dr. Roberto Rosales

Roozbeh Mehrabadi.

Thanks to my fellow SoC students, most notably: Dr. Dipanjan Sengupta

Dr. Xiongfei Meng
Dr. Peter Hallschmid.

Thanks to our funding sources:

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
PMC-Sierra, Burnaby, BC Canada (including use of their design tools)
Canadian Microelectronics Corporation (CMC).

Finally, and most importantly, thank you to my family -- especially Mom and Dad who have
always been there for me. And lastly, Thank You Dana for everything.

xii
Chapter 1 : Introduction and Overview

1.1 Motivation

Synchronous clock delivery has always been a major design challenge in application

specific integration circuits (ASICs). Without an adequate clock signal, synchronous

circuits will experience setup time and/or hold time violations on flip-flops that may lead to

logic errors, and they will consequently fail to operate as expected. Much of the effort in

clock design is spent on reducing two key timing issues of skew and jitter [1]. Skew is

defined as the difference in clock edge arrival times for two different clock wires (or clock

paths). Skew is typically caused by mismatches in the branches of the clock distribution

network. Jitter is defined as the difference in clock edge arrival times with respect to its

expected position for a single clock wire (or clock path). Jitter is typically caused by circuit-

induced noise effects on the clock signal. Today, significant area, power, and metal

resources are required to distribute a synchronous, high-speed clock across a large die with

minimal skew and jitter. Yet, the synchronous clock delivery problem is expected to be

even more difficult in the future, as seen in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 : Clock skew over process technology (from [2])

1
 Table 1-1 : Clock Period Lost to Skew from Figure 1.1 Data

Technology Clock Period Skew % Lost to Skew

180nm 3ns 165ps 5.5%

90nm 1.5ns 90ps 6.0%

65nm 750ps 65ps 8.7%

45nm 375ps 45ps 12.0%

Although the absolute level of clock skew is seen to be decreasing in the graph of

Figure 1.1, the amount of clock skew as a percentage of clock period is in fact increasing for

each new process technology node. Assuming a reasonable clock frequency of 333MHz for

the 180nm node, and doubling the clock frequency for each subsequent node, the percent of

clock period lost to skew is calculated for each process technology and displayed on Figure

1.1 and in Table 1-1. The percent of clock period lost to skew is seen doubling from the

90nm to the 45nm node. While these are somewhat conservative predictions, in reality,

predictions for overall variability in process nodes beyond 45nm have been shown to further

exacerbate the clock skew problem, as well as jitter. In fact, according to projections in [3],

as processes scale further down into the nanometer range, larger percentages of the clock

period will be lost to clock skew and clock jitter unless there are major changes in the clock

design approaches. Therefore, new techniques to improve overall clock timing performance

(clock skew and jitter) are needed.

1.2 Synchronous Clock Design Issues

The vast majority of present-day ASICs use synchronous clocks [1] driving single-

edge triggered flip-flops (FFs). Furthermore, even the larger chip sizes of very large-scale

2
integrated (VLSI) circuit designs, which in the future may adopt a globally asynchronous

clock, will still rely on locally synchronous clocks for logical circuit operation [4].

Therefore, synchronous clock circuit design will be the focus of the research here since

today it is a critical component of IC design and will continue to be so in the future.

The design and architecture of many commonly used clock distribution systems are

thoroughly described in several papers [5][6]. Standard inverters, commonly referred to as

clock buffers, are typically used to drive the clock signal from the root (the phase-locked

loop or delay-locked loop source) to the leaves (the FFs) of a clock distribution network

(e.g., H-tree, grid, hybrid) [7][8][9][10][11]. Three different forms of clock networks are

illustrated in Figure 1.2, with the H-Tree in some form being the most common.

Figure 1.2 : Basic Clock Distribution Networks: H-tree, Grid, and Hybrid (from [7])

The primary goal of these different architectures is to reduce maximum clock skew

and maximum jitter. For the purposes of this research, skew will be defined here as the

difference in clock edge arrival times for two different clock branches, Δti-j=ti-tj. The arrival

time for each unique clock branch will be measured at its terminal clock leaf and represented

as ti. Therefore, the maximum clock skew will be given by the absolute value maximum of

Δti-j=ti-tj for i ≠ j, where i and j cover every clock leaf of the entire chip. Likewise, jitter will

be defined as the difference in clock edge arrival time for a single clock branch. Therefore,

3
the jitter at any given clock leaf is represented as Δtk=tk,max-tk,min, and the maximum jitter is

given by the absolute value maximum of Δtk, where k covers every clock leaf of the entire

chip. Illustrated representations of skew and jitter will be provided later in Section 2.1.4.

Skew can be caused by mismatches in the routing of the clock distribution network

and also by intra-die process variations of one clock path, or branch, versus another clock

branch. Ideally, the routing paths between the clock's root node and two different FFs

should be laid out identically; but this option is often not possible and, hence, skew is

created. Furthermore, the process variations, supply voltage fluctuations, and temperature

gradients across the chip during its operation are increasingly significant factors in skew

today [12][13][14]. Thus, both sources of clock skew (layout mismatches and process,

voltage, and temperature variations) should be reduced. In addition, clock latency, which is

the total path delay from the clock root to its leaves, where FFs are connected, is another

useful timing metric since a lower latency often implies a lower skew.

Jitter is expected to be a significant source of problems for clock designers according

to the projections of [3]. The effects of supply noise, coupling noise, and other noise

sources are expected to increase in the future and significantly reduce the usable clock

period due to jitter. At the same time the clock period will continue to shrink with each

technology generation and further exacerbate the problem. Previous work on jitter, or phase

noise as it is often called by analog designers, has lead to the metric of Impulse Sensitivity

Function (ISF) [15], which relates jitter performance to clock edge transition slope. When

the clock signal is stable (at a high or low level) or when the clock's non-critical edge is

transitioning, then noise impulses are not a concern in terms of jitter. However, each

transition of the clock's critical timing edge leaves it exposed to these noise impulses and

4
therefore vulnerable to jitter. So, if the critical edge-rate of the clock signal can be

sharpened, the jitter performance will likely improve. Other techniques to shield the clock

and reduce noise injection levels can greatly improve the jitter as well.

1.3 PVT Variations

Circuit designers have long been aware of the three primary categories of variation

mentioned earlier that affect circuit delays across a chip: Process Parameters for NMOS

and PMOS devices, Supply Voltage, and Temperature -- collectively referred to as 'PVT'.

Each one varies independently, although there may be correlations between them. These

variations could generally be different from within a chip, from chip-to-chip, and from

wafer-to-wafer due to integrated circuit (IC) wafer processing and in-situ system

performance. However, the chip-to-chip variations (an example of which is shown in Figure

1.3) and wafer-to-wafer variations would equally impact all components and branches of a

single chip's clock distribution network. Accordingly, they would not significantly

contribute to clock skew within a given chip. Therefore, the greater concern for clock

timing performance is due to intra-chip PVT variation [12].

Figure 1.3 : Process variation over one die from a wafer (from [16])

5
 The diagram of Figure 1.4 demonstrates an idealized representation of how P, V,

and/or T could vary across an H-tree clock distribution network of a single chip. A variety

of other gradients are possible by repositioning the center of the variation(s) elsewhere on

the clock distribution tree, or by distorting the geometric shapes of the contour lines. These

PVT variations could bring about time-invariant differences between the clock branches, or

they could be time-varying during circuit operation. Typically, process variations tend to be

static in nature but may drift slowly over time, while supply voltage and temperature

variations are truly dynamic in nature and depend primarily on the layout of the

power/ground grids, the floorplan of the blocks on the chip, and the activity levels of the

blocks themselves. As a result, PVT variations must be expected throughout any clock

network and will affect latency, skew, and jitter on the clock signal [17][18][19][20][21].

Figure 1.4 : Concentric circles representing P, V, and/or T variations (from [2])

Process variations can be further classified into two distinct categories based upon

their degree of correlation across the chip. Random variations are considered uncorrelated

spatially and therefore they can be modeled as random variables at every location on the

chip. Spatial variations are highly-correlated across the chip and therefore are modeled as a

spatial pattern or gradient across the chip, as in Figure 1.4. Some circuits (e.g., small,

6
matched, localized blocks) may be more affected by random variations, while others (e.g.,

large, global, dispersed blocks) may be more affected by spatial variations; so, both random

and spatial variations must be considered in clock timing analysis.

1.4 Skew and Jitter Reduction and Compensation

Various techniques involving clock buffer sizing and placement, along with clock

distribution and power grid balancing, and symmetric layout have been used to keep PVT-

induced clock skew and jitter under control [22][23][24][25][26]. Predictions for future

process nodes shown earlier indicate that increases in clock skew and jitter will limit the

speed gains (due to clock period reductions) that smaller device sizes may offer [3].

Therefore, new and better techniques to reduce clock skew and jitter must be developed and

implemented. The main objective in this research is to greatly reduce clock skew without

degrading clock jitter (or perhaps even improving it) in the presence of PVT variations, and

this achievement constitutes the key contribution described in this dissertation.

The research described in the chapters to follow begins by proposing a new method

which is minimally disruptive to the ASIC flow and which does not require any changes to

the interconnect wires or any increase in the clock buffer area or power. Yet, this new pre-

silicon method significantly improves the clock network's timing performance and reduces

the effects of intra-chip PVT variations on the clock distribution. This new method is called

Single-Edge Clocking (SEC). It focuses clock buffer resources on the timing-critical clock

edge to reduce skew and jitter by reducing latency and increasing the edge rate. SEC

systems propagate asymmetrical clock signals to favor the clock's critical edge over its

other, non-critical, edge. To implement the SEC method, two asymmetric, single-edge

7
buffers are required to alternately propagate the critical edge through the clock network, and

these asymmetric buffer designs are also described in detail.

The results will show that significant timing gains can be realized by replacing the

single chain of equal rise/fall buffers with an alternating pattern of asymmetric rise/fall

buffers that focus the majority of their current drive only on the one truly critical clock edge

-- the edge that ultimately activates the leaf FFs. The other, non-critical, clock edge will be

somewhat degraded. However, depending upon the circuit's clock period and timing

requirements, that degradation may present no real liability to the circuit's overall

performance; therefore, these significant timing gains can be made in nearly any

synchronous clock network at little or no additional costs.

Such pre-silicon techniques work well to reduce clock skew by adjusting for design

and/or layout related imbalances in the clock distribution network and its loads. In fact, the

primary advantage of any pre-silicon technique is its ability to reduce clock skew prior to

the major expense of reticle (or mask set) creation, but its primary disadvantage is its

inability to address the causes of clock skew that only arise during circuit operation (after

chip fabrication). As previously indicated, each processes shrink causes the on-chip or intra-

die variability due to numerous PVT variations to grow, and these potentially sizeable post-

silicon variations cause clock skew (and jitter) to rapidly consume an increasingly larger

percentage of the clock period [12][13]. Since these full-chip variations are nearly

impossible to predict and/or control during the design/layout phase, they cannot be

addressed until after chip fabrication. Therefore, various types of post-silicon techniques

will become necessary [22] as PVT variations continue to increase. It is expected that most

future designs will incorporate some form of post-silicon clock adjustment (via tunable

8
clock buffers, for example) to compensate for the majority of intra-die PVT variations

[27][28].

A worthwhile direction for post-silicon skew compensation is to configure active

(always-on) tuning loops that self-monitor for clock skews and appropriately adjust their

tunable buffers [29]. This post-silicon adjustment necessitates the creation and proper

insertion of adjustable or tunable components within the clock distribution network –

namely, tunable clock buffers. It also requires methods of measuring skew differences of

clocks at the appropriate points in the circuit, which are then fed back to the tunable buffers

to enable the necessary adjustments. Such systems are commonly referred to as adaptive

circuits or active deskewing circuits. As [28] clearly states, new scaling issues will cause

more variability in circuits, and therefore designers will likely use more of these adaptive

circuits. The work described in later chapters will focus on deskewing networks consisting

of multiple clock zones without the availability of chip-wide reference clocks or signals. In

particular, this research proposes a novel method of interlinking multiple instances of delay-

locked loops (DLLs) into a stable ring configuration. This technique, called ring tuning

(RT), will be presented in full for the post-silicon skew compensation of a typical H-tree

clock distribution network.

1.5 Research Statement

Research Objective:

To build a better clock distribution network for ASICs that is able to automatically

compensate for on-chip PVT variations in order to reduce clock skew and clock jitter with

no significant increase in overall clock network area or power consumption.

9
 Methodology:

• Develop a technique that optimizes only one edge of the clock signal --

single-edge clocking (SEC).

• Design asymmetric clock buffers to be used in conjunction with SEC.

• Extend the buffers to provide a tunable mechanism and determine appropriate

locations and sizes of these SEC tunable buffers.

• Design a circuit to measure skew between clock edges at different points in

the chip for use in automatic skew compensation.

• Develop an overall architecture for clock edge calibration (i.e., setting the

adjustable clock buffer tuning values) in order to reduce clock skew.

1.6 Thesis Organization

The rest of this thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 2 provides the needed

background and overview of clock distribution systems. Chapter 3 presents the new Single

Edge Clocking method for pre-silicon skew reduction. Chapter 4 presents the tunable buffer

for SEC, and introduces more specialized SEC applications. Chapter 5 presents the novel

Ring Tuning architecture for post-silicon skew compensation. Chapter 6 summarizes the

findings and recommends directions for future work.

10
Chapter 2 : Synchronous Clock Background

This introductory chapter provides a background and overview of synchronous

clocking techniques and associated definitions for clock metrics. The key issues for clock

design are presented, along with a few techniques for clock improvements based on previous

work. Section 2.1 begins with a brief review of the clock function, starting with the basic

concepts and continuing with clock networks and flip-flops. Section 2.2 discusses Process,

Voltage, and Temperature (PVT) variations and their effect on the clock signal. Section 2.3

presents traditional clock buffer design concepts and more advanced adaptive deskewing

compensation methodologies. Finally, Section 2.4 summarizes the chapter.

2.1 Clock Function and Design Issues

The clock circuit is the central heartbeat of most VLSI chips and is therefore a

critical design component in both digital and analog circuits today. The clock source's

primary function is to generate a periodic clock signal that regulates the timing of the entire

chip [5]. Almost all circuits designed today are synchronous; although there are some

exceptions that are globally asynchronous, they still make use of locally synchronous clocks

[1][4], which is known as 'GALS'. Therefore, this thesis will focus only on the improvement

of clocks in synchronous circuits.

Typical synchronous circuits rely upon a highly precise clock signal to trigger the

computation of multiple combinational logic blocks which may be widely-distributed across

an entire chip. The entire clock system can be divided into three main components: the

clock source, the timing flip-flops (FFs), and the clock distribution network.

11
2.1.1 Clock Source

High-frequency clock signals are typically generated on-chip based on a low-

frequency system clock provided at one of the chip input pins. Complex analog circuits

designs, such as phase-locked loops (PLLs) or delay-locked loops (DLLs) are commonly

used to produce a square-wave signal of the appropriate frequency for the entire chip's

timing needs. This "source" clock signal is intended, ideally, to trigger each of the

numerous FFs attached to the clock network at exactly the same instance in time. However,

since the source clock is only available at the output of the PLL and the timing FFs are

widely-distributed across the entire chip, a vast distribution network must be employed to

deliver the clock signal ubiquitously and precisely.

2.1.2 Flip-Flop Timing Issues

The ultimate timing-related performance of a synchronous circuit depends upon the

simultaneous triggering of all the timing FFs. As shown in Figure 2.1, the minimum clock

period is ideally the sum of delays through the FFs, logic, interconnect and the FF setup

time. However, this simultaneity may be difficult to accomplish since there are many

differences (to be elaborated further in this chapter) through the buffers and interconnects

from the clock source to the leaf nodes. The key is to identify and to compensate for these

differences in the design of the clock distribution network. Hence, any technique to improve

the timing accuracy of the final clock signal(s), which triggers the FF(s), will improve the

timing performance of the entire chip.

12
 Figure 2.1 : Ideal Synchronous Clock Period (from [5])

The majority of circuit designs utilize single-edge triggered FFs, such as the one

shown in Figure 2.2. Although implementations may vary, this type of FF can be viewed as

a D-latch pair. By common definition, latches are transparent when their clock, or CK, line

is high, while FFs are only triggered by a clock edge. As the diagrams show, the clock's low

level sets up the Q output of the first D-latch, and the clock's subsequent rising edge actually

triggers that input value to the FFs output. Therefore, this design is referred to as a rising-

edge triggered FF. The only timing critical event is the clock's rising edge, provided that the

clock's low level is long enough to pass the IN data through the first D-latch. The falling

edge of the clock is only used to set up for the next rising edge that triggers the FF again, so

the falling edge can occur at any time before the end of the clock period without FF error.

Figure 2.2 : Rising edge-triggered D Flip-flop (from [30])

13
 For proper operation, the FF must satisfy certain setup and hold requirements, as

shown in Figure 2.3. The FF setup time is defined as the time required for the input data

signal to be valid before the incoming clock edge arrives to trigger its capture. Violations of

the setup time are due to slow paths in the combinational logic. The setup time adds directly

to the idealized clock period, shown earlier in Figure 2.1, and effectively slows down the

operating frequency of the chip. The hold time is the time required for the input data to

remain valid after the clock edge transition has occurred. Violations are due to fast paths in

the logic circuit and they must be slowed down, typically by using delay buffers, to avoid

timing problems. As a result, designers work to minimize both setup and hold times of FF’s.

Figure 2.3 : Flip-flop setup and hold time definitions (from [30])

The effect of the clock arriving at different times to different FF’s may cause them to

inadvertently capture incorrect data, which leads to a malfunction in an otherwise working

logic design. In effect, the setup and hold times of the FFs are violated by late-arriving or

early-arriving clock signals. To be safe, the clock period must be extended by the expected

degree of clock edge variation to ensure that the design works properly. While the

frequency of operation of the design may be reduced to fix set-up time violations, oftentimes

14
the resulting slower frequency may not satisfy the design specification. Therefore, it is

important to identify the sources of the clock edge uncertainty and to reduce this uncertainty

as much as possible, as described in the sections to follow.

2.1.3 Clock Distribution Network Design

While a basic understanding of the clock source and leaf FFs is necessary, the

research in this dissertation is exclusively focused on improving clock signal delivery via the

clock distribution network. The background on this topic is covered in the section below.

2.1.3.1 Basics of Clock Networks

The clock distribution network is usually constructed as either a branching clock tree

or some form of an interconnected clock tree/grid hybrid. Regardless of the chosen

architecture, the typical clock distribution network is merely composed of two fundamental

circuit elements: buffers and wires, as depicted in Figure 2.4 for a representative clock tree.

Figure 2.4 : Clock Tree Components [Root, Branches, and Leaves] (from [5])

The wires may use all metal layers, but the major trunks are typically routed using

the upper layers of metal that tend to be wider and thicker, since large currents are expected

to flow through the wires on every cycle. These metal wires are actually distributed RC

15
lines which can be modeled as lumped RC circuits using a π-model for simulation purposes

using the effective resistance and capacitance per unit length values. The layout and routing

of the clock lines can be quite complex since they compete with power/ground lines and

other global signals that also use the upper layers of metal.

In keeping with the "tree" metaphor, the final clock signals (outputs of the final clock

buffers) are commonly referred to as the "leaf" nodes of the clock; likewise, the initial or

source clock signal is referred to as the "root" node of the clock, and the pathway from the

root to any leaf node is a clock "branch". A standard clock tree will have only one root, but

multiple branches and leaves. It is the design (placement, sizing, routing, etc.) of these

buffers and wires that ensures the accurate and precise delivery of the clock signal from its

single source (root) to its numerous, widespread triggering nodes of FFs (leaves).

2.1.3.2 Basics of Clock Buffer Design

Clock buffers in CMOS circuits are predominantly large CMOS inverters, as shown

in Figure 2.5. They must be large in order to propagate clock signals quickly to the target

flops and to drive the large interconnect lines between them. These inverters are sized and

placed throughout the clock tree according to various factors usually involving a trade-off

between timing (including edge rates and skew), power, and area.

16
 Figure 2.5 : Typical CMOS Inverter (from [30])

The principle design consideration for a CMOS inverter is the ratio of the PMOS

width, WP, to NMOS width, WN [31]. The 50% of VDD crossing point for the timing

response equations of the NMOS and PMOS transistors can be used as a measure of the

propagation delays for the high-to-low and low-to-high transitions, respectively [30]. A

first-order approach to creating a symmetrical clock inverter (i.e., the high-to-low and low-

to-high propagation delays are equal) is by plugging the large-scale effective resistance

values, Reff (30kΩ/ for PMOS, 12.5kΩ/ for NMOS) into the propagation delay equation

and setting the two equations equal to each other, with LN=LP, leading to:

WP/WN = 30kΩ/12.5kΩ = 2.4 (2-1)

Therefore, if the clock buffers are designed to be symmetrical, the PMOS device is

customarily 2.4 times larger than the NMOS device for equal rise/fall delays. In the past,

this ratio resulted largely from the difference of mobility between holes (for PMOS) and

electrons (for NMOS). Today, it is primarily due to differences in velocity saturation of the

two types of devices. However, for the remainder of this dissertation, this 2.4X ratio will be

rounded up to 2.5X for consistency with other publications. The 2.5X ratio provides a better

balance between equal rise/fall times and optimal signal propagation delay through a chain

17
of inverters. So, this practical value (from HSPICE models derived from actual process

data) is more appropriate for use when designing inverters and clock buffers.

A secondary design consideration of the clock buffers is their input and output

capacitances. The purpose of a clock buffer is to propagate the input signal to the output by

properly driving the output load, but any buffer placed in a signal path, such as the clock

tree, will necessarily affect the signal itself. Most significantly, a clock buffer will contain

input and output capacitances that must be considered in the signal path's load calculations.

The input capacitance of a CMOS inverter is commonly referred to as the gate

capacitance, since the gate terminal is its sole input connection. Basic first-order analysis of

a typical CMOS inverter results in the following equation for the inverter's gate capacitance:

CG = CGn + 2 COL + CGp + 2 COL = (CoxL + 2 Col)(WN + WP) (2-2)

Here, CGn and CGp are gate capacitances of NMOS and PMOS devices, respectively,

and COL is the overlap capacitance. Since the first parenthesized term of this expression is a

constant for a given process technology, the gate capacitance, or input capacitance, of a

clock buffer is proportional to the sum of the transistor widths, or (WN + WP).

The output capacitance, commonly referred to as the self-capacitance, of the same

CMOS inverter can be analyzed to obtain:

Cself = CDBn + CDBp + 2 COL + 2 COL = Ceff (WN + WP) (2-3)

where CDBn and CDBp are junction capacitances of NMOS and PMOS devices, respectively,

and Ceff is the effective capacitance per width which is taken to be a constant for a given

process technology. As a result, the output capacitance is also seen to be proportional to the

sum of the transistor widths (WN + WP), similar to the input capacitance.

18
2.1.3.3 Other Clock Design Issues

Other issues in clock design concern power and area, as well as noise issues that

either affect the clock or are affected by the clock [5]. Predominantly, for power and area

reduction, CMOS clock distribution networks have utilized clock inverters in place of (true,

non-inverting) clock buffers, and balanced clock trees in place of high-load metal grids.

Additionally, clock gating [30] is commonly used to minimize the number of FFs that are

unnecessarily triggered, thereby reducing the overall clock power. Interconnect noise issues

are typically dealt with by shielding and spacing techniques on the clock wires [6]. Power

grid noise is addressed by placing decoupling capacitors close to the large clock buffers

[30].

2.1.4 Clock Timing Metrics

This thesis will focus on a common configuration of clock distribution networks;

namely, CMOS inverters driving metal wires in the H-tree configuration of Figure 2.6. This

regular structure will also allow for a proper, but controlled, test vehicle for the comparison

of traditional techniques with new methods to improve the timing characteristics of clocks

that will be presented in this thesis.

Figure 2.6 : Typical Synchronous Clock Network [H-tree and FFs] (from [7])

19
 Three important metrics are used to assess the timing performance of a synchronous

clock: latency, skew, and jitter, as shown in Figure 2.7. Latency is the total path delay from

clock root to its leaves where flip-flops (FF) are connected. In Figure 2.7, latency would be

measured as the total time for a clock signal to pass from the root buffer (#1) through all the

branch wires and buffers (#1b, #2, #2b, and #3) and through the leaf buffer (#4). When two

clock architectures both employ the same metal wire H-tree, have the same number of

buffers, and roughly the same buffer area and power, yet one delivers the critical clock edge

significantly earlier than the other, the faster method would be preferred since a lower

latency often implies a lower skew.

Figure 2.7 : Clock Latency, Skew, and Jitter. (#1 = root buffer and #4 = leaf buffer)

In this research no distinction between local clock skew (the maximum skew within a

given clock zone inside of the chip) and global clock skew (the maximum skew within the

entire chip) will be made. The design task will be to reduce full-chip clock skew;

specifically, to minimize the maximum clock skew as defined in Section 1.2, as measured

across each of the 64 leaf clocks.

20
 Skew can be caused by mismatches in the clock distribution network and intra-die

process variations of one clock path or branch versus another branch. In Figure 2.7, skew is

depicted as the measured difference in latency, or delay, between any two clock leaves.

Designers aim to minimize this value since it directly reduces the usable clock period by the

clock skew. That is, it requires that the clock period be increased by at least the amount of

skew. Ideally, the paths between the root node and two different FF’s should be laid out

identically, but this perfect symmetry is often not possible and consequently skew is created

[32]. Perhaps even more importantly, the process variations, supply voltage fluctuations,

and temperature gradients across the chip (i.e., PVT variations) are major factors in clock

skew today.

Jitter is primarily caused by noise impulses on the clock signal, and is therefore very

difficult to model and simulate using circuit simulators such as SPICE. In Figure 2.7, it is

represented as the time-varying clock edge at one clock leaf. The amount of jitter also

directly increases the clock period and therefore must be reduced as much as possible. Jitter

is due to noise injection effects of the voltage supply, coupling to neighbors that are

switching, and other sources such as substrate noise. These noise levels are expected to

increase in the future and significantly reduce the usable clock period due to jitter [3], while

at the same time the clock period will continue to shrink with each technology generation to

further exacerbate the problem. As a result, designers will have to use a variety of methods

to get jitter under control. The issue is that each transition of the critical edge of the clock

may be exposed to these noise impulses and therefore vulnerable to jitter. Therefore, if the

edge-rate of the clock signal can be sharpened, the jitter performance will likely improve.

Previous work on jitter, or phase noise in the parlance of analog designers, has led to an

21
associated metric called the Impulse Sensitivity Function (ISF), which relates jitter

performance to clock edge transition slope [15].

2.2 PVT Variations and Skew

Clock distribution networks are ideally designed to be perfectly balanced;

consequently, every clock branch is identical and no differences in latency exist between

any two branches (i.e., zero skew); actually, this layout balance is difficult to achieve but

designers and computer-aided design (CAD) tools have been able to reduce skew down to

acceptable levels. However, in real-world designs, the variations due to process gradients,

and voltage and temperature fluctuations will inevitably impact every clock branch of an

actual operating chip differently [33]; therefore, techniques must be applied to the circuit

models used for simulation to replicate these PVT variations to obtain early information

about the degree of impact they may have on skew, and to propose clock design changes.

Programs such as HSPICE have built-in static models for simulating different

process corners. In a typical process corner each of the contributing factors is listed as Fast

(F), Typical (T), or Slow (S). Representation of the NMOS device is listed first, then the

PMOS device (e.g., FS for fast-NMOS and slow-PMOS). The supply voltage variations can

be VDD+10% (F), VDD (T), and VDD-10% (S). The temperature ranges can be low (F),

nominal (T), and high (S). Best-case, worst-case and typical PVT corners can be established

with various combinations of P, V and T.

The precise level of skew experienced across any clock distribution network requires

highly-accurate models of random and spatial intra-chip variations [2][34][35], which are

rarely available for every given process technology, fabrication site, and chip application.

Therefore, two different techniques of modeling the skew caused by PVT variations will be

22
used in this research. The first technique uses modifications in the circuit model parameters

for P, V, and T in order to compare a clock with the fastest possible inverters to one with the

slowest possible inverters -- this technique is referred to here as the worst-case skew metric.

The second technique uses higher-level circuit parameters (such as transistor size or wire

length) to mimic intra-die PVT variations that result in clock skew.

The relative comparison, which provides meaningful data of the robustness to skew

of two clock distribution methods, can be obtained by simulating their worst-case skew.

Here, the worst-case skew will be taken as the difference in latency, or path delay, of a clock

branch simulated with Slowest corner (SS, 0.9V, 150oC) parameters and with Fastest corner

(FF, 1.1V, 0oC) parameters in a 90nm CMOS process with a nominal supply voltage of

1.0V. This worst-case skew technique works well to compare two clock branches with two

separate transient simulations; however, the difficulty of independently setting P, V, and T

parameters for every component of a full-chip netlist leads to the usage of higher-level

circuit parameters.

Figure 2.8 : PVT Variation Skew Modeling (from [36])

23
 The higher-level circuit parameter technique allows for easy and independent

modification of every circuit component (transistors and wire segments) within a full-chip

netlist. The full-chip schematic is partitioned into numerous sub-blocks and two Matlab

created matrices (one for transistors and one for wire segments) are superimposed to create

the PVT-induced variations. This higher-level variation technique can be used in the

manner outlined in Figure 2.8 to model both random variations and spatial variations across

the full-chip during a single circuit simulation, making it very useful for the Monte Carlo

simulations carried out in a later chapter on the topic of ring tuning.

As seen in Chapter 5, both the worst-case skew technique (applied in Chapter 3

simulations) and the higher-level circuit parameter technique (applied in Chapter 5

simulations) result in comparable skew improvement results, confirming their effectiveness.

2.3 Skew Reduction Techniques

Understandably, there have been a wide variety of techniques developed to reduce

skew over the years. Here, recently published techniques for skew reduction in clock

circuits are summarized. Most attempts are applied in the circuit design phase (i.e., static),

called pre-silicon techniques. Other attempts are invoked one time or multiple times during

a circuit's operation (i.e., dynamic), called post-silicon techniques.

2.3.1 Pre-silicon Techniques

Pre-silicon techniques commonly involve a matching or balancing of the clock wires

[37], the clock buffers, or both. Design adjustments to the clock distribution network are

made based upon simulation and modeling of extracted data -- prior to chip tape-out.

24
2.3.1.1 Balancing Clock Distribution Wires

Many elaborate design techniques have been proposed and employed to reduce skew

and/or jitter: grid tuning [38], wire snaking [8], delay insertion [23][39], mesh hybrids [24],

and link insertion [25][26][40][41][42], to name a few. These techniques recognize that a

perfectly balanced distribution network will minimize the variation between clock branches,

and thereby reduce clock skew [43]. Unfortunately, the act of balancing out a distribution

network typically involves the addition of metal, thereby increasing other undesirable

effects. One such balancing technique is depicted in Figure 2.9. A typical H-tree (shown on

the left) can be better balanced by adding square, metal links in a grid-like fashion (shown

on the right).

Figure 2.9 : Balanced H-tree for skew reduction (from [19])

This technique increases the upper layer metal wire area of the distribution network,

which in all likelihood will increase its capacitive loading and its power dissipation, and

may also necessitate the use of larger clock buffers, further increasing power dissipation and

switching noise. It also creates more routing congestion for other global signals that require

this metal layer. Therefore, this method of distribution network balancing through 'bulking-

up' of the wires will come at a price, so it should only be used sparingly.

25
2.3.1.2 Balancing Clock Buffers

The clock buffers, or inverters, used to distribute the clock signal have been

traditionally balanced in two ways.1 First, they have been commonly designed as symmetric

inverters in which the rising-edge and falling-edge transitions are designed to be equal-but-

opposite, as explained previously. This clock signal symmetry has several advantages, such

as 50% duty-cycle propagation, minimum combined switching time, and a single, edge-

invariant inverter design.

Figure 2.10 : Balanced Buffers for reduced skew (from [45])

The second method of balancing the clock buffers is described in [45] and is shown

in Figure 2.10. The primary finding was to show that clock skew can be lessened by

keeping the sum of the PMOS devices and the sum of the NMOS devices consistent in all

clock branches – regardless of the number of inverters in each branch. By keeping the pull-

up networks and pull-down networks equal strength across every clock branch, any PVT

variations will more likely affect each branch similarly and the resulting clock skew will be

minimized.

1
Note that other more elaborate clock buffer techniques have been published to reduce skew, but their complex implementation makes
them more of a new clocking architecture rather than just a balanced clock buffer technique [44].

26
 One novel research topic in this dissertation proposes a method of using asymmetric

inverters in place of symmetric ones for better timing performance with little to no power or

area cost. This asymmetric clock buffer design contravenes the first balanced buffer

technique by using unequally weighted pull-up and pull-down individual inverters, but

adheres to the second balanced buffer technique by maintaining equal pull-up/pull-down

summations throughout every clock branch.

These asymmetric buffers will be designed such that their WP/WN ratio will be

different from the value used by traditional buffers (2.5), but they will keep (WP+WN) the

same to ensure that their input and output capacitance effects are nearly identical to the

traditional buffers that they are designed to replace. Subsequent design of a complete clock

distribution tree involves a combination of the following three in-depth, inverter-design

procedures:

♦ Detailed load calculations - The loading along the entire clock tree must be

modeled accurately in order to properly design the drive sizes of the clock

buffers. Inverter input and output loads, wire loads, and the terminal FF

loads all must be considered.

♦ Gate sizing for optimal path delay - More realistic clock waveforms (not just

step functions) and transistor models (not just effective channel resistance)

must be used along with the detail load model from above when calculating

signal and path delays.

27
 ♦ Buffer insertion for very long wires - The quadratic delay of long clock wires

must be reduced to nearly linear delays with the proper insertion and sizing

of additional buffers, or signal repeaters.

One last consideration regarding the clock distribution network design is, of course,

the architecture chosen (tree, grid, hybrid, etc.). The balanced, fanout-of-four (FO4) H-tree

architecture chosen for this research places several constraints on the placement and fanout

of the clock buffers. Modified versions of the H-tree are implemented in practice since it is

difficult to use the idealized structure directly on a design with irregular blocks. Clock grids

tend to have much lower skews at the expense of area and power, and the hybrid methods

attempt to balance the advantages and disadvantages of trees and grids. However, these

networks introduce additional constraints depending on the chip being designed. These

constraints tend to override some of the detailed calculations from above procedures, so they

must be accounted for as well; hence, the idealized H-tree is the best vehicle for comparing

the new techniques introduced in this thesis. Further details of the final clock distribution

network design will be presented in the next chapter.

2.3.2 Post-silicon Techniques (Active De-skewing)

Pre-silicon techniques, such as those described in the previous section, work well to

reduce clock skew by adjusting for design and/or layout related imbalances in the clock

distribution network and its loads. However, on-chip PVT variations are nearly impossible

to predict and/or control during the design/layout phase, they cannot be addressed until after

chip fabrication. Therefore, some form of post-silicon clock adjustment of skew will be

necessary to compensate for the majority of intra-die PVT variations. This post-silicon

28
adjustment necessitates the creation of an adjustable or tunable component within the clock

distribution network – namely, a tunable clock buffer. Furthermore, methods of measuring

the skews at key points in the circuit must be developed along with reliable methods of

feeding back the skew data to the tunable buffers for skew adjustment.

Research has been performed on tunable delay buffers for various applications [46],

targeting the symmetric waveforms of traditional clocking. One-time programmable tunable

clock buffers have been used to reduce skews by adjusting clock delays post-silicon based

upon wafer probe or assembly final test data gathered from Automatic Test Equipment

(ATE) or from a start-up characterization step [47][48]. However, the challenge of precisely

measuring numerous internal clock signals during ATE test makes this technique difficult

and costly. Furthermore, PVT variations may change over time during normal circuit

operation, so an initial, single clock adjustment may not suffice over the device's lifetime

usage.

A better approach for post-silicon skew compensation is to configure active (always-

on) tuning loops that self-monitor for clock skews and appropriately adjust their tunable

buffers. Such systems are commonly referred to as adaptive circuits or active deskewing

circuits. As [28] clearly states, new scaling issues will cause more variability that affects

circuit designs, and therefore designers will likely use more of these adaptive circuits.

29
 Figure 2.11 : A basic post-silicon skew compensation system (from [49])

Some previous implementations of active deskewing have been adequate at

measuring and adjusting two clock regions (or tuning zones) with respect to each other

across the entire chip [49][50], as in Figure 2.11. The clock distribution shown on the left

side is made tunable by the addition of a phase detector, deskew control, and tunable delay

line shown on the right side. However, the anticipated increasing levels of intra-die

variations will require a finer resolution of adjustability consisting of many more than just

two tunable clock zones, so the sharing of multiple clock zone phase information is critical.

2.3.2.1 Multiple Tuning Zone Synchronization

The traditional DLL architecture, which is commonly used to synchronize clock

phases in an active deskewing system, consists of two clock signals: the tunable clock is

adjusted via tunable buffers to align with a reference clock. As mentioned above, the

synchronization of clock networks consisting of only two tuning zones is straightforward

using a single DLL -- one zone is chosen as the reference, and the other zone is tuned to

align with it. However, for clock networks of more than two tuning zones, referred to here

as multi-zone networks, a more elaborate configuration of clock phase sharing must be

30
employed. The simplest of the multi-zone phase sharing configurations is the use of a

global reference clock. Having a single ubiquitous reference clock would allow for each

tuning zone to align its tunable clock to a single, chip-wide clock phase. The multi-zone

synchronization problem can therefore be reduced to multiple instances of the simple two-

zone configuration -- one DLL for each zone aligns its tunable clock to the global reference

clock. Unfortunately, generating that global reference clock with constant phase for use

across the entire chip can be costly.

One such implementation of multi-zone synchronization via a global clock reference

is given in [51]. A reference clock is routed in parallel with the main clock to be used for

local synchronization, but it requires the addition of a second, identical, balanced clock H-

tree exclusively for the reference clock distribution. Since the reference clock has no loads,

this removes many constraints from the design of its clock tree allowing lower skew to be

achieved. In addition, the drivers in the reference network can be smaller than those in the

main network. Clock distribution networks are very costly in terms of die area, metal

routing, and power consumption; therefore, adding a second clock distribution network is a

costly addition that should be avoided if possible.

Another similar implementation is the use of return clocks for phase alignment as in

[52][53][54]. Note that a reference clock is routed from the clock root to the clock leaves

for phase comparison, whereas a return clock is routed from the clock leaves back to the

clock root for phase comparison, but they both provide the two clocks necessary for multiple

implementations of the simple two-zone deskewing system. Again, however, the additional

distribution of a return clock can be quite challenging. In [54], the return clock is to be

delivered via the clock shielding wires. The shielding wires are included in most clock

31
distribution networks to isolate the clock signal from the rest of the chip; they are typically

connected to ground to help attenuate any switching noise. Redesigning the shielding wires

to double as clock returns presents additional complexity in the design.

A slight variant to the global clock reference method is the use of a global timing

reference or global control voltage in the case of [55]. That system essentially converts the

clock phase difference between the source clock and a return reference clock into a voltage

level for use at multiple PLLs. However, distributing a precise, analog control voltage

across an entire chip is also challenging, although solutions could be developed to address

this issue. Such a voltage reference distribution would still be subject to the unavoidable

intra-die PVT variations and various noise sources that would impact each tuning zone

randomly, creating skew between zones for which the single, global control voltage could

not be adjusted.

Based on the above issues, the work described in this dissertation will focus on

deskewing networks consisting of more than two tunable clock zones without requiring

chip-wide reference clocks or control signals. A model for multiple PLL clock distribution

systems was created in [56] predicting that single PLL systems will be adequate for the

130nm process node, but that four PLLs will be superior for the 100nm node. Continuing

with that trend further, multiple PLL (or DLL) clock distribution networks should be

considered for future synchronous VLSI designs. Two such multi-zone clock-synchronizing

configurations are examined below. The first is a series multi-module architecture, also

referred to as a cyclic configuration, and the second is an acyclic configuration. Later, the

research described in this dissertation will propose a new method of interlinking multiple

instances of DLLs into a stable ring configuration that addresses problems of the previous

32
two methods. This novel technique of Ring Tuning (RT) will be presented in Chapter 5 for

the post-silicon skew compensation of a typical H-tree clock distribution network.

2.3.2.2 Cyclic Architecture

An early multiple PLL system is described in [57]. The schematic of their four PLL

series architecture is shown in Figure 2.12. The master clock at the center is distributed to

four delay elements that supply their tuned clocks to the four regions labeled A through D.

The tuned clock from each region is then fed to two skew sensors (or phase detectors) for

comparison with neighboring clocks. Two major issues exist with this proposed

implementation: PVT variations on the signals and overall system stability.

Figure 2.12 : Previous multiple PLL ring architecture (from [57])

Firstly, the specifics of distributing the primary clock signals, the analog control

voltages, and the feedback clock signals across the entire chip are not addressed. With the

high levels of intra-die variation of present and future process nodes, the chip-wide

distribution problem must be specified and included in any clock skew results reported.

Secondly, the issue of system stability is not adequately covered. As seen in the diagram of

33
Figure 2.12, each phase comparator (labeled ‘pc’) produces two control voltages (one for

each of two neighboring delay elements), and consequently each delay element receives two

different analog control voltages. How these separate voltages are handled so as not to

result in overall system instability is not sufficiently discussed. In fact, three distinct types

of stability must be considered for any cyclic architecture. For the purpose of this research,

these three varieties of stability will be referred to as Mode-lock, Mode-lock Oscillation, and

Cyclic-Feedback Oscillation.

Mode-lock: Traditionally, the term mode-lock refers to an undesired condition of

multi-zone tuning, where one or more local phases may lock out of synchronization with the

global phase. For the system depicted in Figure 2.12, it would be possible for zone D to

lock 90˚ out of phase with zone A, zone C to lock 180˚ out of phase with zone A, and zone

B to lock 270˚ out of phase with zone A, since traditional analog phase detectors have a 90˚

phase limit. This mode-lock condition is a perfectly valid and stable locking state of the

cyclically connected multiple tuning zones; however, its phases are incorrectly locked, so

the system will remain unsynchronized. Mode-lock is avoidable with the use of more

complex phase detectors [58] [59]. However, in order to avoid these complex phase

detectors, [60] recommends propagating the phase information in a single direction (acyclic

instead of cyclic), which will be covered in the following section.

Mode-lock Oscillation: Note that in this dissertation, a new term, mode-lock

oscillation, will be used to describe a multi-zone system instability that is closely related to

the original problem of mode-lock. In mode-lock oscillation, the multiple tuning zones

oscillate back-and-forth between two or more valid locking states, resulting in an unstable

locking of the entire system. As shown in Figure 2.12, the tuned clock of one zone becomes

34
a reference clock of its neighboring zone. This exchange of clocks (zone A tuned becomes

zone B and zone D reference, zone B tuned becomes zone A and zone C reference, and so

on) continues around the ring in a closed-loop or cyclic fashion. As a result, the adjustment

of the tuned clock of one zone could (if the other zones are appropriately positioned) occur

simultaneously as an opposite adjustment of its own reference clock – thereby negating the

intended clock tuning step and causing the same zone to attempt a reverse tuning correction.

Such a cyclic tuning structure could become 'stuck' in an infinite loop of continual

oscillation between two valid adjacent tuning states. Oftentimes, this more difficult problem

of mode-lock oscillation is simply (but incorrectly) referred to as mode-lock; nevertheless,

both mode-lock and mode-lock oscillation must be avoided for stable synchronous clocking.

Cyclic-feedback Oscillation: The final stability concern for cyclically-connected

multiple tuning zones arises from its complete cycle (or feedback) of phase sharing. Again,

from Figure 2.12, any phase adjustment at zone A will be passed through its adjacent 'pc'

block to zone D, and then to zone C, and then zone B, and finally back to zone A again. If

the four zone phases were appropriately positioned, a 'traveling wave' of clock phases could

essentially be passed around the cycle indefinitely. To stop this 'traveling wave' from

maintaining oscillation, or instability, the cyclic loop should be designed to dampen the

wave as it circles.

2.3.2.3 Acyclic Architecture

In order to break the cyclic configuration and eliminate its inherent problems of

mode-lock, mode-lock oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation, an acyclic configuration

has been proposed. Two algorithms of acyclic phase averaging are presented in [61] and

their favored technique is utilized in the Intel Itanium microprocessor [73]. The multiple

35
PLL clock architecture of [61] is shown in Figure 2.13. On the left is the generic H-tree

clock distribution network populated with 16 PLLs synchronized via 24 phase detectors. On

the right is a diagram of the acyclic phase alignment, starting with the reference PLL in the

upper left corner of the chip and propagating across the entire chip to the lower right corner.

Figure 2.13 : Previous acyclic multiple PLL connections (from [61])

Such an acyclic phase distribution algorithm does avoid the three system instabilities

discussed in the preceding section by eliminating the cyclic, multi-directional feedback loop

of [57] and [58], but it brings up a new problem referred to as Out of Range.

Out of Range: As the phase information passes from one corner of the chip to the

other, it is quite possible that the phase adjustments will accumulate, ultimately reaching the

tuning limit of some of the tunable buffers. Using tunable buffers of larger ranges to avoid

the limits is not necessarily desirable or even possible. Therefore, some method of global

control must be established to adjust the entire clock system away from the limited tunable

buffer(s). In fact, the algorithm proposed in [61] requires three controllers (global

controller, local controller, and reference alignment controller) for proper operation of the

36
active deskewing system. Designing these controllers and placing them throughout the chip

are non-trivial tasks. If the deskewing clock regions could be configured such that they

control themselves while avoiding the out of range problem, then all these system-level

controllers would no longer be necessary, and the design and implementation of such a

system would be simpler. This approach is pursued in the research, as described in detail in

Chapter 5.

2.4 Background Summary

As described in this chapter, there are two opportunities to reduce clock skew:

Pre-silicon: by modifying the circuit design and/or layout, the clock distribution network

can be better balanced and therefore more immune to PVT variation causing clock skew.

The research to be described in the next chapter proposes a novel clock buffer design to be

used for pre-silicon skew reduction, called Single-edge Clocking (SEC). By moving from

symmetric inverters to asymmetric inverters for clock buffers the critical clock edge can be

delivered quicker and sharper, thereby reducing clock skew, while the non-critical clock

edge is relaxed2.

Post-silicon : by measuring the clock signals after chip fabrication, tunable elements can be

adjusted to compensate for PVT variation causing clock skew. The research in later

chapters proposes a novel, dynamic clock tuning scheme for active clock deskewing, called

Ring Tuning (RT). Simple adjustable clock buffers can be interlinked into a ring structure

2
Note that previous work has recommended relaxed clock edges for switching noise reductions [62][63], but not for clock timing
performance improvements, as intended here.

37
creating autonomous, stable, DLL-like clock zone tuning to compensate for real-time

measured clock skew.

38
Chapter 3 : Single-Edge Clocking (SEC)3

The timing performance of a typical synchronous circuit is primarily dependent upon

the simultaneous activation of the timing flip-flops (FFs) driven by the clock leaf buffers, as

shown in the previous chapter. Furthermore, the activation of a typical edge-triggered FF is

essentially governed by the single, critical edge (oftentimes the rising edge) of the clock

signal. Hence, by delivering that critical, rising edge of the clock to all the leaf FFs faster

(i.e., less latency) and sharper (i.e., quicker rise-time) the timing performance of the entire

synchronous circuit can be improved.

The research described in this chapter will demonstrate a new technique to use

asymmetrical clock buffers in an alternating pattern to propagate the critical edge of the

clock signal both faster and sharper, resulting in clock latency, skew, and jitter performance

improvements of over 20% versus traditional symmetric clocking. Furthermore, the clock

buffer area and power consumption will remain virtually unchanged. Using these

asymmetric clock buffers will result in pulse width accumulation, limiting their maximum

frequency; however, by using a clock pulse at the clock root, this pulse width growth can be

tolerated for clock frequencies typical in most ASIC circuits.

The clock distribution network for a hypothetical 10mm x 10mm square chip is used

as the demonstration vehicle in this chapter using a full array of asymmetric SEC buffers,

and its timing performance is compared with that of a traditional, symmetric clock

distribution tree. First, however, the general timing tradeoffs of asymmetric, SEC design are

described. To do so, a new timing metric called degradation factor will be defined in order

3
The research covered in this chapter has been published in: J. Mueller and R. Saleh, “Single Edge Clock (SEC) distribution for
improved latency, skew, and jitter performance,” Proc. of VLSID, pp. 214-9, Jan. 2008.

39
to quantify the degree of asymmetry of any given clock buffer. Then, the details of the

clock tree architecture and buffers will be described, and the simulation results will be

compared to the traditional approach.

3.1 Improved Clock Period Utilization with SEC

Note that in the following discussion of this section, the traditional method of

measuring a periodic signal's pulse width will be modified slightly to capture the degrading

effect of the neglected clock edge, tnegl. As illustrated in the top diagram of Figure 3.1 the

common definition of pulse width, PW, is measured at the 50% of Vdd crossing points.

However, using this method to analyze the clock period would not directly include the

degrading effects of the neglected clock edge. A modified method of defining the PW is

shown in the bottom diagram of Figure 3.1. This modified method clearly demonstrates the

clock period intervals consumed by the neglected and critical clock edges4. Furthermore, as

the lower diagram indicates, the intended role of the 'safe' portion (i.e., to provide a constant

voltage settling interval to insure that the neglected clock edge does not interfere with the

next critical clock edge) is more explicitly displayed using this modified pulse width

definition.

4
Conveniently, this modified method of defining the pulse width matches with the HSPICE syntax for defining a voltage pulse source,
thereby allowing for the simulation clock signal to be constructed directly from this clock period analysis.

40
 Figure 3.1 : Traditional and Modified Definition of Pulse Width

3.1.1 Performance Trade-off between Clock Edges

The motivating concept behind SEC clocking is best explained by examining the

four segments of the clock period. The leading edge (rise or fall) is followed by the leading

level (high or low), followed by the trailing edge (fall or rise), and the trailing level (low or

high). In SEC designs, only one of these four segments is critical for timing performance --

the leading edge should have low skew and low jitter -- while the other three segments

merely exist to 'setup' for the leading edge of the next clock period. Hence, more focus

should be placed on the leading, critical edge, even if it is at the expense (or neglect) of the

other three regions -- assuming, of course, that such degradation of the other regions does

not affect the proper operation of the circuit. Furthermore, since the arrival of the critical

clock edge at the final leaf FFs is the sole purpose of this clocking system, it can accurately

be called single-edge clocking5. As such, the pulse width, or duty cycle, of the clock signal

5
Note that double-edge triggered flip-flops cannot be supported in this approach. However, the dominant clocking scheme in most
ASICs today employs single-edge triggered flip-flops.

41
is not important; therefore, this SEC technique will use a short pulse as the initial clock

signal which is a notable difference compared to the traditional methods.

The clock period diagram of Figure 3.2 illustrates the SEC method by following a

clock signal as it propagates through the clock network levels, starting with the initial pulse

PW0 at level l=0 and ending with PWL at level l=L where the FFs are located. A sharp

leading edge is propagated quickly and cleanly by each SEC buffer; however, the trailing

edge is sluggish and delayed at each level, which forces the leading pulse width to grow and

the trailing pulse width to shrink. This degradation is the effect of neglecting the trailing

edge throughout a typical SEC distribution. Eventually, the trailing edge would exceed the

clock period window, if this trend continued, and the clock signal would be lost.

Figure 3.2 : Clock Period Utilization

Simple equations can be derived to bound the amount of trailing edge degradation

allowable for a given clock period and distribution network. First, it is assumed that tcrit and

tnegl (the rise/fall times of the critical and neglected clock edges, respectively) of Figure 3.2

are constant for all SEC levels. This assumption follows from the selection of asymmetric

42
and complementary buffers, referred to here as INVr (strong rising edge, weak falling edge)

and INVf (strong falling edge, weak rising edge), with equal degradation factors, to be

defined shortly. The amount of pulse width (PW) growth through l SEC buffers (or levels)

can be expressed as:

(3-1)

where l=0,1,...L.

For SEC evaluation, a new metric called the degradation factor is defined as,

η=(tnegl/tcrit), where tnegl and tcrit are the transition times of the neglected clock edge and

critical clock edge, respectively. Here, if tnegl=tcrit, then η=1, which is traditional

(symmetric) clocking, so there is no pulse width growth and the duty cycle remains constant

throughout. Effectively, η is a measure of how much of a departure the asymmetric buffers

are from the traditional buffers. This directionally-neutral definition of degradation factor

allows for its usage with INVr (strong PMOS) and INVf (strong NMOS) buffers alike.

The intent of this metric is to capture the degree of trade-off being made when

focusing on the critical clock edge, which inevitably impairs the neglected clock edge. As

mentioned previously, the critical edge of an INVr buffer is the rising edge of its output (the

neglected edge is the falling edge); conversely, the critical edge of an INVf buffer is the

falling edge of its output (the neglected edge is the rising edge). Furthermore, pairs of

complementary INVr-INVf SEC buffers are chosen to have equal amounts of trade-off

between their critical edge improvement and neglected edge impairment (i.e.,

complementary SEC buffer pairs have equal degradation factors as mentioned above).

It is important to realize that the initial clock pulse width, PW0, must be large enough

to propagate through the first buffer, but should be small enough to allow for as much clock

43
period degradation as possible. Let Tclk be the clock period and let L represent the number

of SEC levels. For proper operation, the initial (root clock) pulse width, PW0, is bounded

by6:

(3-2)

A safeguard of 20% of the clock period (represented by the 0.8 multiplier above) has

been added to account for generalized assumptions and simulation inaccuracies. Circuit

design particulars may dictate using a higher guard-band for more conservative timing or a

lower guard-band for more aggressive SEC performance improvements. Choosing a higher

degradation factor will result in better critical edge performance, but more of the clock

period will be degraded, so a trade-off must be made. The number of SEC levels, L, is

limited by the clock distribution network; hence, the design challenge is to minimize PW0 in

order to maximize η.

The clock frequency limitation imposed by the neglected edge of the SEC technique,

as expressed in Equation (3-2), can be summarized as follows. The minimum period (or

maximum frequency) for a non-SEC clock signal, of any process technology, can be roughly

defined as twice the minimum pulse width (assuming the conventional 50% duty cycle).

Instead, the minimum period of an SEC system would be twice that same minimum pulse

width plus the amount of pulse-width growth through all clock levels due to the neglected

edge, from Equation (3-1) plus a designer chosen guardband to insure that the neglected

edge does not interfere with the critical edge. The former term represents the desired trade-

6
Note that the tcrit(η+1) term, which equates to (tcrit+tnegl). in this equation is a result of the modified pulse width definition explained at
the beginning of this section.

44
off from the neglected edge to the critical edge -- a more aggressive SEC system (higher η)

will have improved timing performance but more pulse-width growth. The latter term

represents an additional sacrifice that must be made due to the relaxed quality of the

neglected edge. However, as later simulations will show, the two additional terms are small

enough to permit the usage of SEC for most ASIC clock frequencies, which are typically

well below the process technology's maximum frequency.

3.1.2 Practical Application of SEC

To illustrate these concepts further, full-chip H-tree simulations were performed.

The H-tree used is the one shown in Figure 3.3, with a standard, balanced fanout-4, 4-level

architecture. It is designed to deliver a supplied clock signal (as represented by the arrow

pointing to #1) to 64 leaves covering the entire 10x10mm2 chip. Buffers are positioned at

the center of each H structure (#1, 2, and 3), along with extra buffers, or repeaters, to handle

the long wire loads (#1b and 2b), and finally at the leaf ends to drive the FF loads (#4).

The distribution wires from the clock source to the 2nd level buffers are designed to

be 2X wide (as indicated by the thick lines), and therefore are modeled as half the resistance

per length of the remaining branches. Approximate 90nm process wire parameters7 of

Rwire=300Ω/mm and Cwire=200fF/mm have been used in a π-segment wire model, and the FF

loads at each leaf are modeled as 200fF capacitors.

7
Note that this resistivity value of Rwire=300Ω/mm corresponds to lower level metal traces, which exhibit worst-case performance in
these simulations. In later sections the results will be given with intermediate and upper level metals of Rwire=30Ω/mm and Rwire=3Ω/mm,
respectively.

45
 Figure 3.3 : 4-level H-tree

The experiments on the H-tree for different values of η used a Tclk of 4ns, a tcrit of

400ps (10% of Tclk), and 5 levels of SEC buffers in a typical 90nm process.8 Plugging these

values into Eqn. (3-2) results in the data shown in Table 3-1.

Table 3-1 : SEC buffer degradation factor choices

η PW0 min (ps) PW0 max (ps)

1 400 2400

1.5 400 1700

2 400 1000

2.3 400 580

2.5 400 300

8
Note that the timing performance improvements of SEC over TC will hold for any clock period that provides adequate space for pulse
width growth as captured in Equation (3-2). HSPICE simulations have shown this 5-level SEC H-tree circuit to operate properly for clock
frequencies in excess of 1GHz (1ns clock period), but the period of 4ns has been chosen here for consistency with an ASIC design.

46
 The first row of this table shows a minimum pulse width of 400ps leads to a

maximum pulse width of 2400ps using Equation (3-2), which assumes a 20% guardband9.

However, the most important results appear in the two last rows. The table indicates that a

degradation factor of 2.5 is not feasible since PW0max < PW0min, and therefore a factor of

2.3 would be considered a practical limit. A more suitable factor of 1.5 with an initial clock

pulse of 500ps will be used in further simulations. Based on this result, the size selection for

the two complementary SEC buffers from the β modeling can be carried out as discussed in

the next section. These two SEC buffers are then designed into a full-chip clock distribution

network for the analyses described in the subsequent section.

3.2 SEC Buffer Design Constraints

With the given background of the design principles of traditional, symmetric clock

buffers from Chapter 2, the "non-traditional" aspects behind SEC clock buffer design are

now addressed. Most notable in this context is the need for two distinct SEC inverters in

place of one single traditional inverter. Whereas the traditional buffer is symmetrical, so

only one buffer design (called INVt) is necessary to propagate both the rising-edge and the

falling-edge of the clock signal, the SEC buffers are asymmetrical, so two buffers are

needed: one buffer (called INVr) to propagate the rising-edge and one buffer (called INVf)

to propagate the falling-edge. The designs of these two complementary, asymmetric SEC

buffers are very much a mirror-image process.

9
A traditional clock distribution would not necessarily budget a 20% guardband for pulse width growth, so its maximum pulse width
could be taken as 3600ps.

47
3.2.1 SEC Capacitance Constraint with Drop-in Compatibility

The SEC inverters are intended to integrate seamlessly into existing circuits by

replacing the traditional, symmetrical inverters throughout the clock distribution network.

Consequently, additional design constraints are placed on these special SEC buffers in order

to make them compatible with traditional clock buffers. The most important of these

constraints derives from the inverter capacitance modeling of the preceding chapter. By

simply matching the SEC buffers' input and output capacitances and layout areas with those

of traditional buffers, it will be possible to use these asymmetric SEC buffers as "drop-in"

replacements for existing symmetric buffers. This interchangeability effectively simplifies

their use by designers and minimizes their impact on automatic computer-aided design

(CAD) tools.

From Equations (2-2) and (2-3) it has been shown that both the input and output

capacitance of a CMOS inverter is proportional to the sum of the widths of its NMOS and

PMOS devices. Therefore, in order to keep the input and output capacitances of these

asymmetric inverters nearly equal to those of the traditional, symmetric inverter, the sum of

the transistor widths (WN + WP) should always be kept uniform. The details behind the

design of a typical SEC buffer pair are covered next.

3.2.2 SEC Asymmetrical Inverter Pairs

The degree of asymmetric skewing of an inverter is measured by that inverter's β,

which is defined as the ratio of the width of the PMOS transistor to the width of the NMOS

transistor, β = WP/WN. As explained in Section 2.3.1.2, the β of a traditional, symmetric

inverter is β=2.5 (referred to as INVt). If the PMOS were made larger (i.e., wider channel)

with respect to the NMOS, then the β would be skewed to a value larger than 2.5, and the

48
INVr buffer would be said to favor the rising edge of the output clock signal. Conversely, if

the PMOS were made smaller with respect to the NMOS, the β would be less than 2.5, and

the INVf buffer would favor the falling edge output. Now that the capacitive loading

constraint of uniform (WN + WP) has been imposed on the new SEC buffer designs,

equations governing the asymmetrical skewing of the clock buffers can be generated.

As previously mentioned, the asymmetry of these buffers will impact both speed

(i.e., delay or latency) and edge rates (i.e., rise and fall transition times) of the clock signal.

Therefore, either metric, delay or transition time, would be suitable for deriving these

equations; here, transition time is chosen since it can be measured directly from the output

signal alone (at the 10% to 90% levels) whereas delay would have to be measured with

respect to some other reference point in time.

Figure 3.4 illustrates the impact that asymmetrically skewed buffers would have on a

clock signal's transition times. The top waveform shows how a square-wave clock signal is

passed by a symmetric, traditional inverter (INVt) without much distortion on either edge –

just inversion. In the middle waveform, however, the INVr would produce a sharper rising

edge at the output, but a much slower falling edge. Conversely, in the bottom waveform, the

INVf would produce a sharper falling edge but a slower rising edge. From these waveforms,

it is evident that one of two possible asymmetric inverters would be necessary to replace a

traditional, symmetric inverter -- depending upon whether the rising or falling edge of the

output signal was the critical edge. A model for selecting the precise β for each inverter is

covered next.

49
 Figure 3.4 : Faster and sharper edges for SEC inverters (INVt versus INVr & INVf)

3.2.3 SEC Inverters' Beta Modeling

Circuit simulations using generic 90nm process models in HSPICE can be used to

calculate the transitions times for a wide range of possible inverter β’s. The results from

such HSPICE simulations of the rise-time, Trise, and fall time, Tfall, (as measured at the

10% and 90% signal levels) are shown as the large data points in Figure 3.5 , respectively.10

Inverter β’s ranging from 0.075 (strongly INVf) to 35 (strongly INVr) are plotted on

the logarithmic x-axis. As mentioned above, the INVf inverters, on the left side of the plot,

have faster Tfall values, but much slower Trise values. Conversely, the INVr inverters, on

the right side, have faster Trise and slower Tfall. The symmetrical INVt (β=2.5) is indicated

at the center of the plot where the Trise and Tfall curves intersect (i.e. Trise=Tfall as

expected).

10
Note that the rise and fall times (consequently, tcrit and tnegl) depend upon the input waveform and the inverters' load; therefore, these
β simulations are carried out for the fully loaded clock distribution network with the assumed root clock input.

50
 Figure 3.5 : Trise and Tfall (left) and η (right) versus buffer β

The graph on the right of Figure 3.5 plots the degradation factor (η=tnegl/tcrit) versus

the clock buffer β. The y-axis is positioned at the INVt (β=2.5) inverter, so the INVf

inverters are on the left of the axis, and the INVr inverters on the right. (These η values are

simply calculated by dividing the appropriate Trise and Tfall data from the graph on the left.)

Basic circuit analysis techniques can be used to derive equations for the two Trise

and Tfall curves to validate the results. Using the general form of the Elmore delay [64]:

Since (WN + WP) is held uniform the two equations for the transition times can be expressed

in terms of the inverter's β as follows:

Trise = 2.15 ( 20.4 (1/β) + 81.9 ) (ps) (3-3)

Tfall = 2.15 ( 8.5 β + 70.0 ) (ps) (3-4)

51
 Curves for the above two equations are superimposed as lines on the graph of Figure

3.5. As seen, they match the HSPICE simulation data extremely well11. Since these

equations model the transition times of the inverters so accurately, they can be used to

calculate the timing impact of skewing the inverter's β when designing SEC buffers12.

Figure 3.6 : Relative Transistor sizing for TC & SEC clock buffers

Using the curves of Figure 3.5, or the above equations for Trise and Tfall, two

representative SEC inverters (INVf and INVr) have been designed to compare against a

traditional inverter (INVt). As indicated on the graph, the INVf is chosen at a β=0.56 and

the INVr at β=6.0. Schematics to illustrate the relative transistor size for these three

11
Note that a factor of 2.15 has been included in these equations to fit the simulation data. This constant accounts for the difference
between the Elmore definition of delay and the simulation transition times, as well as the use of the slow corner model in HSPICE as
opposed to the nominal values for the hand calculation.
12
Note that these equations and simulations are only valid for this generic 90nm process -- new equations would be computed, using
these same techniques, for other process technologies.

52
inverters are shown in Figure 3.6. At the top is the traditional, symmetric inverter INVt with

β=2.5; On the bottom left is the asymmetric, SEC inverter INVr in which the PMOS relative

size is increased for stronger pull-up, with β=(3/0.5)=6.0; and, on the bottom right is the

asymmetric, SEC inverter INVf in which the NMOS relative size is increased for stronger

pull-down, with β=(1.25/2.25)=0.56. The relative width for each transistor is also given in

the schematics of Figure 3.6. The sum of two transistor widths, (WN + WP), is seen to be

held uniform for all three inverters (1+2.5 = 0.5+3 = 2.25+1.25 = 3.5), as explained

previously for similar input and output capacitances.

3.2.4 Layout Area Considerations

One important topic related to the transistor sizing of the SEC inverters concerns the

layout of the clock buffers. As previously mentioned, a primary concern in the design of

these asymmetric SEC buffers is to allow them to be "drop-in" replaceable with the

traditional buffers. With regard to the electrical characteristics of the input and output

capacitive loading of the inverters, maintaining a uniform "sum of transistor widths" for the

inverters would allow for their 'electrical' drop-in substitution anywhere within the clock

tree. Furthermore, this same constraint, uniform (WN + WP), can also be shown to allow for

their 'physical' drop-in substitution directly in the actual layout of the chip.

53
 Figure 3.7 : Layout of three inverters (INVt, INVr, INVf)

Figure 3.7 shows a conventional layout for the three chosen inverters (INVt, INVr,

and INVf). By orienting the widths of the PMOS and NMOS transistors of the inverters

along the same axis, it can be seen that any size adjustments due to changes in the β=Wp/Wn

ratio will not impact the overall area or even footprint of the inverter -- provided of course

that (WN + WP) remains uniform. In particular, a clock tree could be designed in the

traditional fashion with traditional clock buffers [65][66][67], all the way up until the final

tape-out of the entire circuit, at which point the traditional buffers could be replaced with

SEC buffers for improved clock timing performance. Furthermore, timing errors that may

develop very near the end of the chip design and layout could be corrected by a simple

substitution of a traditional buffer with an appropriately faster SEC buffer.

3.3 Analysis of Asymmetric SEC Buffers

3.3.1 Voltage Transfer Characteristics

The voltage transfer curve (VTC) is a very useful tool in analyzing the input-to-

output operation of an inverter. The three inverters (INVt, INVr, and INVf have been

54
simulated with a DC sweep of the input voltage in HSPICE to produce their VTCs (upper

portion) and current plots (lower portion) as shown in Figure 3.8. INVt is at the top, INVr in

the middle, and INVf at the bottom. Two simple observations can be made from these three

VTC plots.

Figure 3.8 : VTC and current curves (INVt, INVr, INVf)

55
 1.) The shapes of the three curves are all very similar. The 'high' horizontal

region, its adjacent curve downward, the 'low' horizontal region, its adjacent curve

upward, and even the slope of the middle linear transition region are nearly identical

for all three graphs. This shape similarity is very desirable because it indicates that

the three inverters will behave very similarly in operation.

2.) The input voltages at the switching point are all very different. INVr

switches at a much higher input voltage than INVf, and INVt is near the middle point

in between them. (The input voltage sweep of Vin=0 to Vdd is plotted to highlight

the difference of the three VTC curves.) This difference in switching voltage is also

very desirable because it permits the INVr buffer to switch faster and sharper to a

falling-edge input, and INVf to switch faster and sharper to a rising-edge input.

The current plots (shown in the lower portion of each of the three graphs) of Figure

3.8 likewise illustrate how the asymmetric inverters, (INVr and INVf) have the same basic

operation of the symmetric inverter (INVt), but merely shift the switching point to a higher

or lower voltage, respectively. Note that while the peak current of the asymmetric inverters

(1.06mA and 1.30mA) is actually less than the symmetric inverter (1.42mA), they each have

one slightly wider side of their distribution, so the integrated current of all three inverters are

about equal. This current distribution partially explains the fact that the power numbers of

the different devices are about the same.

3.3.2 Noise Margins

The voltage levels of an input or output signal may vary significantly from the ideal

inverter. Therefore, a practical inverter must be able to convert a 'less-than-ideal' input into

56
a 'good-enough' output in the presence of noise; otherwise, it risks committing logic-like

errors -- missed transitions, erroneous transitions, propagated glitches, etc. Such errors on

the clock signal would likely cause disastrous errors in the circuit's operation and render the

entire chip useless. Therefore, the proper inverting operation of the clock buffers must be

ensured over the entire possible range of input and output signal levels -- this robustness to

signal level noise is called the inverter's noise margin.

A common definition of noise margin involves the addition of noise to all nodes of

the clock tree simultaneously. This metric is called the multiple-source noise margin,

MSNM. The MSNM is defined as follows:

MSNMH = VOH - VIH (3-5)

MSNML = VIL - VOL (3-6)

From the VTC curves of Figure 3.8 the MSNM for all three inverters are calculated

in Table 3-2.13

Table 3-2 : Multiple-Source Noise Margins

INVt INVr INVf

MSNM H 0.33 V 0.26 V 0.45 V

MSNM L 0.35 V 0.43 V 0.24 V

The skewing effect of the asymmetric buffers increases one side of the noise margin

while decreasing the other side; and the worst-case noise margin represents the dominant

13
Note that the VOH, VOL, VIH, and VIL data values are taken at the -1 slope points of the voltage transfer curves of Figure 3.8.

57
measure of the clock tree's noise tolerance. Consequently, the MSNM of a traditional tree

will fall from 0.33V to 0.24V when using SEC buffers. However, the MSNM level is still

nearly 1/4th of the power supply, so it is still adequate for error-free clock switching,

provided, of course, that multiple noise occurrences on the clock branch can be kept to less

than 0.25V.

3.4 Full-chip SEC Distribution Design

HSPICE simulations were carried out to compare the relative performance of the

clock buffers of the traditional clocking, TC, and single-edge clocking, SEC, methods. The

simulations were run with nominal process parameters initially, and then over PVT

variations, for the previously described 10x10mm2 chip design of Figure 3.3. Both the TC

and SEC methods use exactly the same wire loading and wire process corners, since the

purpose of this experiment is to compare the performance of the TC and SEC buffers head-

to-head.

3.4.1 H-tree Buffer Sizing

Generally, clock buffers are sized as big as necessary to achieve the required skew

performance [68], but not so big as to violate area and power constraints. As seen later, the

total clock power of this design begins to grow unmanageably for buffer sizes of 200X and

larger; therefore, the TC versus SEC performance comparisons are made at the 150X size;

however, for a more complete comparison, all performance data are plotted over a wide

range of clock buffer sizes (50X to 500X). The resulting graphs highlight the anticipated

similar behavior over varying absolute buffer size of the TC and SEC methods.

58
 For the TC clock network, all the buffers are INVt as in Figure 3.6 . For the SEC

clock network, the buffers at levels #1, 2, and 3 are INVf and the buffers at levels #1b and

2b are INVr, also as in Figure 3.6 . The buffers at level #4 are always INVt (for both TC

and SEC) to provide two relatively clean clock edges to the leaf FF loads. The absolute

sizing of the buffers is applied identically to all buffers of the H-tree for both TC and SEC

methods.

3.4.2 Simulation Model -- Single Branch Model

A simple, but essential, reduction of the complete full-chip clock distribution H-tree

must be made in order to perform the necessary HSPICE simulations. As shown in Figure

3.3, there are a total of 95 clock buffers and 127 wires comprising the H-tree network

(which contains 64 clock leaves and therefore 64 distinct clock branches).

For the simulations carried out here, only one complete clock branch is necessary --

provided of course that its loading is properly calculated and applied. Therefore, the

complete architecture of Figure 3.3 is used to calculate the wire and buffer loading of one

clock branch for simulations, which is shown in Figure 3.9. This simplified circuit model,

which is called the single-branch model, SBM, is a string of six clock buffers, or inverters,

connected by wires with every junction fully loaded to replicate the complete full-chip H-

tree. The SBM represents any one of the 64 clock branches from root clock to leaf clock

with FF load. As labeled in Figure 3.9, the INVf-INVr buffers are alternated (5 levels in

total) and an INVt buffer is used at the leaf node to help improve the quality of the neglected

clock edge that directly drives the FFs.

59
 Figure 3.9 : SBM schematic

3.5 Full-chip SEC Performance Results

Figure 3.10 shows the timing performance of the TC design and two SEC designs

(all at 150X buffer sizing) directly from HSPICE simulations using their SBM. The time-

domain graphs aptly illustrate the distinctive TC and SEC operations -- specifically the

latency improvement, neglected edges impairment, and pulse width growth of SEC versus

TC. Waveforms for the input root clock and all branch buffers (#1, 1b, 2, 2b, 3, and 4 [in

bold dot-dash]) are shown for the three different clocking methods (TC, SEC with η=1.5

(β=0.56 and 6.0), and SEC with η=2.3 (β=0.27 and 11)).

The top graph of Figure 3.10 is for the TC method -- all buffers are of type INVt, all

of the leading and trailing edges have similar transition times, and the signal maintains its

50% duty cycle throughout. The middle graph of Figure 3.10 is for a safe SEC method

(η=1.5) -- three INVf and two INVr are alternated, terminated by a INVt, the leading

(critical) edges are sharper and earlier than those of the TC method, but the trailing

(neglected) edges are slower for all but the final leaf clock; therefore, the duty cycle grows

from the root to the leaf. The bottom graph of Figure 3.10 is for the practical limit of the

SEC method (η=2.3) -- the INVf and INVr β's are spread further apart increasing the SEC

characteristics, but the final leaf clock signal nearly consumes the entire clock period,

increasing the risk of losing the clock signal prior to triggering the FFs.

60
 Figure 3.10 : Timing waveforms for TC and two choices of SEC

As mentioned previously, these HSPICE timing simulations were performed over a

range of clock buffer sizing (50X to 500X) for the TC (η=1) and SEC (η=1.5) clock buffer

designs. The SEC (η=2.3) clock signal is too degraded and is only shown in Figure 3.10 as

an example of the potential risks of an aggressive use of buffer asymmetry. A closer look at

the critical edge timing performance improvements of SEC over TC are presented in the

following sections for latency, skew, and jitter.

61
3.5.1 Latency Improvements

Latency, or the total path delay from clock root to leaves, is not necessarily as critical

for a synchronous system as are skew and jitter. However, when two clock architectures

share the same wire H-tree, have the same number of buffers, roughly the same buffer area

and power, yet one delivers the critical clock edge significantly earlier than the other, the

faster method would be preferred as it tends to improve skew.

Figure 3.11 : Latency versus buffer size

As seen in the left graph of Figure 3.11 at the 150X size (circled), the SEC latency is

nearly 200ps or 23% faster than the TC latency (659ps vs. 858ps) for Rwire=300Ω/mm. The

similar shapes of the curves also demonstrate that capacitive self-loading of the inverters is

behaving as expected for both TC and SEC; therefore, SEC is essentially a simple

modification of the CMOS inverter instead of a major transformation. Consequently,

similar behavior can be expected between the operation of TC (symmetric) and SEC

(asymmetric) designs. The right graph of Figure 3.11 shows the percent improvement of

SEC over TC for all simulated clock buffer sizes.

If the metal resistance is reduced to Rwire=30Ω/mm, for intermediate metal layers,

then the latency improvement at the 150X size increases from 23% to 35%. At the higher

62
levels of metal, with Rwire=3Ω/mm, the improvement is 38%. Clearly, this SEC approach is

well suited for the clock distribution networks that are mostly routed at the upper layers of

metal.

3.5.2 Skew Improvements

Skew, or the spatial variation of clock edges, can be caused by on-chip PVT

variations of one clock path or branch versus another branch. While the precise level of

skew experienced across any clock distribution network requires accurate models of random

and systematic intra-die variations [2], a relative comparison of the degree of skew of two

clock distribution methods can be obtained by measuring their worst-case skews. Two

simulations were performed on the SBMs of the TC design and the SEC design; the first

with Slowest (SS, 0.9V, 150oC) PVT parameters14, and the second with Fastest (FF, 1.1V,

0oC) parameters. The difference of their slowest and fastest latencies (overall path delays

from root to leaf) is a measure of their worst-case skew, as described in Section 2.2.

The left graph of Figure 3.12 shows that the worst-case skew for SEC is 25% less

than that of TC (322ps vs. 431ps) at the 150X size for Rwire=300Ω/mm. It would not be

accurate to state that SEC has 110ps less skew than TC, since these are unrealistic worst-

case numbers and actual intra-die PVT variations would perhaps be half of these extremes.

However, the relative improvement of 25% less skew for SEC versus TC is still a valid

conclusion. So, if for example a TC distribution network has 200ps of skew, then the

comparable SEC network could be expected to have only 150ps of skew -- a considerable

14
The PVT parameters are listed in the order (NMOS-PMOS, Supply Voltage, Temperature); also, SS refers to Slow-Slow for NMOS-
PMOS, while FF refers to Fast-Fast and TT refers to Typical-Typical.

63
improvement. The right graph of Figure 3.12 shows the percent improvements of SEC over

TC for all simulated clock buffer sizes.

Furthermore, similar to the above latency numbers, if the metal resistivity is

reduced to Rwire=30Ω/mm for intermediate metal layers, or to Rwire=3Ω/mm for upper metal

layers, then the worst-case skew improvement increases from 25% to 36% for each.

Figure 3.12 : Worst-case skew versus buffer size

3.5.3 Jitter Improvements

Jitter, or the temporal variation of clock edges, is primarily caused by noise impulses

on the clock signal, and is therefore very difficult to simulate. However, previous work on

jitter, or phase noise, has developed a metric of Impulse Sensitivity Function (ISF) which

relates jitter performance to clock edge transition slope [15]. Each transition of the critical

edge of the clock leaves is exposed to these noise impulses and, therefore, vulnerable to

jitter. When the clock is not transitioning (at a high or low level) or when the neglected

edge is transitioning, then noise impulses are not as much a concern for jitter. Therefore, to

gain some insight into the level of jitter improvement that can be obtained, the transition

times of the critical edges (at #1, 1b, 2, 2b, and 3) are averaged to compare SEC to TC.

64
 As seen in the left graph of Figure 3.13, the amount of average transition time of the

critical edge is 11% less for SEC than TC (323ps vs. 364ps) at the 150X size for

Rwire=300Ω/mm. Calculating the rms value of ISF across an entire clock period, however, is

a more accurate measure of jitter performance and, as derived in [15], that equation becomes

a cubed relationship. Hence, the potential jitter improvement of SEC over TC would be

(0.893), which is a full 30% improvement in jitter performance. The right graph of Figure

3.13 shows the percent improvements of SEC over TC for all simulated clock buffer sizes.

Figure 3.13 : Average transition time versus buffer size

Once again though, using Rwire=30Ω/mm for intermediate metal layers or

Rwire=3Ω/mm for upper metal layers further increases the above 11% improvement to 29%

or 32%, respectively. Hence, the chosen lower metal resistivity is clearly the conservative

selection in reporting these results.

3.5.4 Power Consumption and Layout Area

Usually, there is a power and/or area tradeoff of a given method relative to another

method, but this is not the case for SEC vs. TC. As the graph of Figure 3.14 shows, the

average current consumption (and likewise the power consumption) of the TC and SEC

65
designs are virtually identical for all clock buffer sizes (50X to 500X) and for all three PVT

conditions: Fastest (FF, 1.1V, 0oC), Nominal (TT, 1.0V, 75oC), and Slowest (SS, 0.9V,

150oC). In fact, they are close enough to be indiscernible in the graphs. This nearly

identical power result is expected from the current comparisons of the inverters' voltage

transfer curves and DC load lines, and these SEC buffers can be laid-out within the same

area as the TC buffers by aligning their transistor widths. Therefore, the significant timing

improvements in latency, skew, and jitter can all be achieved using SEC without any

significant increase in power consumption or layout area relative to TC.

Figure 3.14 : Average Idd versus buffer size

Alternatively, the better timing performance described above could be traded-off to

reduce clock buffer area and clock distribution power by essentially 'under-sizing' the clock

buffers. As seen in the latency, skew, and jitter performance graphs of Figure 3.11, Figure

3.12, and Figure 3.13, equal or better timing performance can be obtained with the 100X

SEC buffers as with the 150X TC buffers, resulting in a roughly 33% reduction in clock

66
buffer gate area and a 12% reduction in total nominal clock distribution current (i.e., power)

-- 14.7mA for 150X TC down to 12.9mA for 100X SEC from Figure 3.14. Therefore, the

SEC technique not only allows for clock timing improvements, but it could also be used for

clock power reduction (a significant portion of overall chip power consumption) over a

traditional clock distribution network by more than 10% in this example.

3.6 Full-chip SEC Conclusions

By analyzing the clock signal waveforms for a typical ASIC synchronous circuit

design, a valuable trade-off from the non-critical clock edge to the critical clock edge has

been illustrated in Figure 3.2. The recognition that a single clock edge is critical for the FFs'

timing has led to the concept of single-edge clocking, which implies the use of alternating,

asymmetric buffers to deliver that one critical clock edge faster and sharper, while

neglecting the other clock edge as an acceptable trade-off. The degree of that trade-off is

captured in the metric called the degradation factor, η, defined as the ratio of the neglected

clock edge to the critical clock edge, tnegl/tcrit. Equations have been derived to calculate

acceptable degrees of trade-off for any given clock distribution network.

This chapter has also shown how to start with a traditional, symmetric clock inverter

(or buffer) and adjust the pull-up and pull-down networks in order to create asymmetric

inverters that improve the rising or falling edge of the clock signal. So long as the sum of

the transistor widths (WN + WP) is held uniform, these new SEC inverters can be used

interchangeably with the traditional inverters. The drive strength of the critical edge of the

SEC inverter will be improved over the traditional inverter, but the input and output

capacitances of the SEC inverter as seen by the rest of the circuit will remain virtually the

same. However, since these SEC inverters target a single critical edge of the clock, SEC

67
uses two complementary inverter designs (INVr and INVf) instead of just the traditional

inverter (INVt). Furthermore, if these new SEC inverters are laid-out with their PMOS and

NMOS widths along the same axis, then the asymmetric inverter’s (INVr or INVf) footprint

will be identical to the symmetric one's (INVt) – allowing for clock timing changes very late

in the overall design process.15

Figure 3.15 : Percent Improvement of SEC over TC

Finally, a hypothetical, but typical, clock distribution network was designed in both

the traditional way (TC) and the new, asymmetric way (SEC). A comparison of HSPICE

simulation data shows that timing improvements of more than 20% are achievable for clock

latency, skew, and jitter -- all without any increase in power consumption or layout area.

Conversely, significant power and area improvements can be made without any decrease in

timing performance. The resulting percent improvements for SEC over TC for latency,

worst case skew, and transition time are once again plotted in Figure 3.15. Significant

timing improvements (15-35%) will be realized at typical clock buffer sizes by using SEC.

15
Note that even if they are not laid-out in this orientation, they will still have equal area, just not the exact same footprint.

68
Chapter 4 : Tunable SEC Buffer Design and Applications16

The design of SEC buffers was covered in detail in Chapter 3, and a full-chip SEC

implementation was shown to improve clock performance in a full H-tree by over 20%. In

this chapter, two additional specific applications of these asymmetric buffers will be

proposed for typical ASIC synchronous circuits. First, a delay adjustable clock buffer, or

tunable buffer (TB), will be designed for use in SEC networks. Adjustability of the clock

edge is a requirement for most post-silicon skew compensation schemes, so tunable buffers

are expected to become necessary as PVT variations continue to increase. Then, a single-

use application of SEC buffers will be proposed to correct circuit timing-errors, which may

arise late in the design stage. Thanks to the interchangeability of traditional and SEC clock

buffers, small but potentially catastrophic timing errors can be corrected immediately before

the tape-out of a final circuit design by the drop-in replacement of a faster (or slower) SEC

buffer.

4.1 Tunable SEC Buffers

The SEC technique now will be used in conjunction with a tunable clock buffer

capable of adjusting its critical clock edge in an attempt to cancel out any detected clock

skew. As with traditional clocking, TC, systems, a tunable buffer is ultimately needed for

SEC to compensate for increasing PVT variations. In its most basic form, a delay buffer is

created by slowing-down a typical buffer or inverter. Three common methods to slow down

an inverter are: 1) adding load capacitance to the inverter output, 2) limiting (or 'starving')

the inverter power and/or ground supplies, and 3) feeding-back the inverter output to

16
Most of the research covered in this chapter has been published in: J. Mueller and R. Saleh, “A tunable clock buffer for intra-die PVT
compensation in Single-Edge Clock (SEC) distribution networks,” Proc. of ISQED, pp. 572-7, Mar. 2008.

69
contend with itself. Methods 1 and 2 will be investigated further in this chapter and will be

referred to as tcp-INVf and tsi-INVf, respectively. Method 3 has been used in industry and

is called a Clock Vernier Device (CVD) [69], but the node contention that exists at its own

output proves to be too much for the neglected edge of the SEC technique, so it is not a

viable option with SEC designs, and will therefore not be analyzed here.

For the particular clock network considered in this chapter, only the INVf buffers are

made tunable; however, the same principles can be applied to INVr buffers, although, they

will require larger areas for their dominant PMOS devices.

4.1.1 Tunable Buffer Design

The two most common types of delay buffers (capacitive load and starved inverter)

will be described for the asymmetric clock buffers of the SEC technique. Selectable (or

programmable) delay can be easily added to any inverter (TC or SEC) through the addition

of various transmission gates; essentially, the design of an SEC tunable buffer parallels the

design of a TC tunable buffer. However, the neglected edge of the SEC waveform creates a

unique complication in its timing delay; therefore, only single-edge delay techniques will be

compatible with SEC networks as shown in the following analysis.

4.1.1.1 Capacitive Load

Figure 4.1 shows a common delay buffer, which will be called a 'tcp-INVf'. This

extremely common delay buffer will be compared later to a specially-designed, single-sided,

starved inverter in order to highlight the particular needs of SEC networks. The capacitive

load delay of tcp-INVf is created by adding selectable capacitance via transmission gates to

the output of a typical clock buffer.

70
 Figure 4.1 : Capacitive load delay buffer

In this case, the typical clock buffer is an INVf of the SEC technique, as shown in

Chapter 3. The near linear delay behavior of the shunt capacitive loads allows for the two

capacitors to be binary weighted (indicated as 1x/2x), thus providing 4 selectable delay steps

in total {00, 10, 01, 11}, where the ordering implies settings for bbit1 and bbit2.

As capacitance is added to a clock line, the signal transitions will be slowed down on

both rising and falling edges; that is, both the critical and neglected clock edges. Since the

SEC technique, by itself, already relaxes the neglected edge considerably, any additional

delays on that neglected edge could inadvertently push it beyond the clock period boundary.

Therefore, one concern is that the tcp-INVf delay buffer will be somewhat limited in the

SEC application.

4.1.1.2 Starved Inverter

The starved inverter method for adding delay has several configurations (analog or

digital, footer and/or header). The version shown in Figure 4.2 will be called a 'tsi-INVf'

design. For the tunable SEC approach, the fundamental goal is to control the delay of the

71
critical edge while allowing the neglected edge to pass unaffected. The critical, falling edge

in this case, is delayed by the NMOS footers connected to ground, but the neglected edge is

passed 'normally', as with a standard SEC buffer. (The same could be said, in reverse, for a

tsi-INVr tunable buffer.) Since this configuration only delays one edge of the clock signal,

it will be called a single-sided starved inverter.

Figure 4.2 : Single-sided starved inverter delay buffer

These particular tunable delay buffers have been designed such that their critical

edge has equal positive and negative tunability with respect to an untunable INVf buffer.

The negative delays are made possible by a more aggressive β sizing of the INVf shown in

Figure 4.1 and Figure 4.2. This centering technique is further explained in Section 4.2.2.

However, their relative tuning delays are a valid metric for this SEC tunable buffer

comparison, whether or not the centering option is ultimately utilized.

72
 For the sizing listed in Figure 4.2, all possible combinations of tbits (thermometer

code bits) and their corresponding delay values are shown in Table 4-1. Three of the codes:

011, 101, and 001 (as indicated in italics in the table) lie so close to the 111 code that they

are of limited use.

Table 4-1 : Delay values for all possible tbit settings

tbit code 111 011 101 001 110 010 100 000

delay (ps) -24.9 -24.7 -24.3 -24.1 -9.3 -4.7 +7.6 +25.7

For the purposes of SEC applications, a thermometer code is the most convenient

way to adjust the delay. Therefore, the footers have been sized to allow for 4 steps of

thermometer-code selectable delay {111, 110, 100, 000}, where the ordering implies settings

for tbit1, tbit2 and tbit3. As a result, this tsi-INVf design has four, linear selectable delay

settings, just like the preceding tcp-INVf design.

Sizing the NMOS footers of this tsi-INVf is rather straightforward. Let the relative

size of each transistor of Figure 4.2 from left to right be Xsz0, Xsz1, Xsz2, and Xsz3, and let

Δt=±25ps be the desired tuning range. The value of delay follows an inverse linear

relationship with the sum of 'on' transistor sizes. First, the 'always-on' footer, Xsz0, is sized

to set the maximum delay (for a tuning range of ±25ps), Xsz0=0.9.

Next, the other three footers are sized to sum to the minimum delay, sum

Xsz=Xsz0+Xsz1+Xsz2+Xsz3=9.3. Then, those two values can be used to determine the y-

intercept and slope of the linear equation, y=mx+b:

(4-1)

73
 (4-2)

All the footer sizes can then be taken from the inverse of that linear equation, as

follows:

(4-3)

Similar calculations lead to Xsz2=1.0 and Xsz3=7.0.

4.1.2 Tunable SEC Simulation Results

Using the sizing process described above, HSPICE simulations were performed on

both the tcp-INVf and tsi-INVf delay buffers in order to compare their clock tuning

accuracy. Both delay buffers were designed to have 4 linear tuning steps over a 50ps tuning

range. The tcp-INVf used a 2-bit binary code, and the tsi-INVf uses a 3-bit thermometer

code.

4.1.2.1 Single Branch Model (SBM)

The same single-branch model, SBM, constructed in Section 3.4.2 is used in the

HSPICE simulations. It accurately models a standard, balanced fanout-of-4, 4-level H-tree

for a hypothetical 10x10mm2 chip. Initially, as per the SEC technique, the buffers at levels

1, 2, and 3 are INVf, the buffers at levels 1b and 2b are INVr, and the buffers at level 4 are

always INVt. The 150X sizing of the buffers is applied identically to all buffers of the H-

tree. Next, the clock edge tunability will be added to this standard SBM via the two chosen

tunable SEC buffers; first tcp-INVf and then tsi-INVf.

74
 Figure 4.3 : SBM schematic with Tunable Buffer (TB)

The simple tunability scheme used here replaces the level-3 SEC buffer (INVf) with

the new tunable SEC buffer (tcp-INVf or tsi-INVf), as shown in Figure 4.3. For the

complete chip H-tree, this tuning configuration results in 16 zones of independent tunability,

each with Δt=±25ps tuning range. Theoretically, if one zone was skewed 60ps ahead of

another zone, the 'fast' zone could be tuned to +25ps and the 'slow' zone could be tuned to -

25ps, thereby reducing the 60ps of skew down to just 10ps. Larger windows of tuning, such

as ±50ps, are possible for both delay buffer designs with a simple resizing of their

capacitance or their pass transistors.

4.1.2.2 Tuning Range Waveforms

Simulations were carried out in HSPICE to compare the familiar tcp-INVf with the

new tsi-INVf in the context of this 16-zone tunable H-tree. To measure delay tunability, the

level-3 buffers were replaced with tunable buffers, and the tcp-INVf and tsi-INVf buffers

were simulated for all four delay settings. The transient response waveforms of Figure 4.4

show nine leaf clocks (output of the level 4 buffers from Figure 4.3) that drive the circuit's

FFs. The bold waveform labeled "SEC Reference" is obtained by keeping the level-3 buffer

as a fixed, non-tunable INVf in order to observe the standard SEC timing as a reference.

75
 The top graph of Figure 4.4 demonstrates what happens with the neglected edges

from the centered, tunable buffers. First note that due to the SEC β resizing to center the

tunable critical edges about the reference (as explained in the Section 4.2.2), all of the

tunable neglected edges are delayed with respect to the reference, an untunable INVf. Of

primary significance, however, is that the tsi-INVf buffer delays only its critical edge, so all

four of its neglected edges appear virtually identical, as noted in the graph.

Figure 4.4 : Tsi and Tcp waveforms over 4 delay settings

Note that the tcp-INVf buffer delays both its critical and neglected edges, so four

distinct neglected edges (one for each of the four delay settings) can be seen in the top

76
graph. Since the tsi-INVf buffers do not degrade the neglected edges as much as the tcp-

INVfs, the tsi-INVf buffers are able to operate with a smaller clock period (i.e., a higher

clock frequency) than the tcp-INVfs, and therefore tsi-INVfs are more suitable for use in the

SEC system.

A portion of the critical edges of the leaf clocks are shown with a higher resolution

in the bottom graph of Figure 4.4. As noted on the graph, the "SEC Reference" is right in

the center of the tunable range as intended -- 2 tcp-INVf or tsi-INVf settings can be used to

tune a negative delay, and 2 tcp-INVf or tsi-INVf settings can be used to tune a positive

delay. It is evident from the curves that the timing performance of the new tsi-INVf design

is equal to, or better, than that of the more familiar tcp-INVf design (i.e., tsi-INVf waveform

edges show more uniform step sizes than those of the tcp-INVf).

4.1.2.3 Area and Power Comparisons

Similar to the timing delays, the silicon area of the tsi-INVf design is much more

'invariant' to delay values than that of other tunable buffer designs. The area of the tsi-INVf

design remains at a near constant 4X of a comparable, non-tunable buffer -- a useful

characteristic if tuning ranges and/or values will be decided/changed late in the design

process -- whereas the area of the tcp-INVf design will vary widely depending upon the

tuning range (which directly affects its capacitance sizing).

As highlighted in Figure 4.4, the neglected edge of the SEC method causes

difficulties for the tcp-INVf design and, therefore, its has a higher amount of crowbar

current relative to the tsi-INVf design. But, even if the clock edges were better controlled,

the tcp-INVf design would still consume significantly higher power due to its larger

capacitance. What is important to note, however, is that these trade-offs do not exist for the

77
tsi-INVf buffer. The tsi-INVf buffer has only a trivial increase of a few percentage points in

average current versus the original, non-tunable SEC buffer. Therefore, from a nominal

operational perspective, the tsi-INVf delay buffer design is the proper choice for SEC

networks. Its performance over PVT variation is also very critical; thus, the tsi-INVf

tunable buffer will now be analyzed over PVT variations.

4.1.3 PVT Variation Results

As PVT varies for both inter- and intra-die scenarios, it is important that the tunable

delay buffer range continues to be centered on the reference edge, and also that the step size

remains relatively constant for the entire range. Ideally, for this chosen Δt=±25ps buffer, the

delay steps would be located at -25ps, -8.3ps, +8.3ps, and +25ps with respect to the

reference. The plots of Figure 4.5 show the four tuning step locations for the Δt=±25ps

range tsi-INVf buffers over the design target extremes of process, voltage, and temperature,

respectively. As shown, the tsi-INVf design is able to maintain 40ps of tuning range with

more or less uniform step sizes for every PVT condition.

Process Voltage Temperature

Figure 4.5 : Process, Voltage, and Temperature tuning ranges

78
 Additionally, the post-tuning skew improvements from all of these PVT conditions

are plotted in Figure 4.6. The clock skew pre-tuning is plotted on the x-axis, with the

corresponding clock skew post-tuning on the y-axis. Each PVT variation case produces a

slightly different sawtooth waveform. The results demonstrate that, for any skew between -

30ps to +30ps, the tuning buffers can ideally reduce it to under 12ps. The buffers have been

designed for this range, and the post-tuning skew could be reduced below this 12ps level if

more tuning steps were added to the tsi-INVf design.

Figure 4.6 : Pre-tuning skew versus post-tuning skew

4.1.4 Tunable SEC Buffer Limitations and Conclusions

Two of the most common delay buffer designs (capacitive loading and single-sided

starved inverter) have been applied to SEC buffers (tcp-INVf and tsi-INVf, respectively).

The tsi-INVf delay buffers can only be controlled by thermometer code settings (not binary),

so having more than 4 or 5 steps per buffer could be difficult, but two or more of these

buffers could be used within a particular clock tree branch or path to provide for more

79
tuning steps and a wider tuning range. More complicated methods of 'starving' the pull-

down side of an inverter have been proposed, such as a PMOS vector controlling a current

mirror [70] or a matrix of NMOS footers [71]; however, the single level, four NMOS footer

design of tsi-INVf presented here was selected because it is capable of meeting the chosen

tuning design targets with less power and area.

It has been demonstrated that clock skew in the presence of PVT variations can be

effectively managed with SEC tunable clock buffers. The neglected edge of the SEC

technique proves to be too sensitive for traditional tunable clock buffers (such as the tcp-

INVf); therefore, the tsi-INVf tunable buffer, which delays only the critical edge, has been

proposed. Its single-edge delay design makes it ideally suited to SEC applications; however,

since only one clock edge is critical in the vast majority of synchronous circuits, the tsi-

INVf buffer could work equally well in TC applications. HSPICE simulations have shown

that it provides adequate tuning steps across a reasonable tuning range, while remaining

largely insensitive to the unique SEC waveforms. Assuming that the proper tuning code can

be determined on-chip (as covered in the following chapter), these tunable SEC buffers can

be used to reduce clock skew significantly in the presence of intra-die PVT variation.

4.2 Individual SEC Buffers for Clock Edge Adjustments

The final application for SEC buffers takes advantage of their superior critical-edge

performance to refine the clock signal timing in either TC or SEC networks. As explained

previously, only the single clock edge that triggers the load FFs is critical for synchronous

circuit timing. Therefore, any favorable adjustment to that critical edge will carry forward

in the clock branch's timing regardless of the corresponding degraded impact on the

80
neglected edge -- assuming of course that the buffer is not too asymmetrical as to lose the

clock switching.

This individual application of an SEC buffer will be described for two distinct

usages: first, for the fine tuning of a clock signal in any existing clock distribution network

(TC or SEC); and second, for the centering of a tunable, or adjustable, buffer's branch timing

with that of an untunable, or fixed, branch timing. In both cases, it is possible to fine-tune

the critical clock edge of any synchronous circuit merely by adjusting the β of a single clock

buffer, or inverter.

4.2.1 Single SEC Buffer Substitution

When one or more clock signals are not sufficiently synchronized at the clock tree's

leaves, clock timing re-design (or re-timing) must be performed. Typically, that re-timing

involves adding more capacitance on one or more clock branches, either by wire snaking [8]

or increasing capacitive loading, in order to slow down the faster clock branch or branches.

This technique of adding capacitance allows for timing adjustments in only one direction:

slowing down or delaying the clock signal. Therefore, it is somewhat limiting and

restrictive; it slows down the speed of the circuit, whereas the usual design goal is to speed

up any given circuit.

On the other hand, selective replacement of TC buffers with asymmetric SEC buffers

(or SEC buffers with even more asymmetric SEC buffers) allows for timing adjustments in

both directions: slowing down or speeding up of the clock signal. Therefore, this method of

clock timing re-design (or leaf clock synchronization) is far more powerful than traditional,

unidirectional methods. The timing characteristics of an existing clock tree can be finely

tuned by strategically converting select clock buffers to more asymmetric SEC buffers in

81
order to reduce (or increase) a given clock branch's latency and thereby synchronize the

clock leaf timing.

Previous data has shown that converting 5 buffers (in a six buffer string) from TC to

SEC can reduce overall clock latency, or delay, by 200ps. Therefore, on average, each of

the chosen SEC buffers (η=1.5) reduces clock delay by 40ps versus a TC buffer. From the

timing plots versus β’s of Chapter 3, it is quite easy to see how any delay reduction up to a

maximum limit of ~40ps would be possible, simply by adjusting the β of a single clock

buffer. A clock branch could be made faster by any amount up to ~40ps simply by tweaking

the inverter layout (as mentioned previously) to favor the critical clock edge while slightly

neglecting the other clock edge. Such an adjustment could prove immensely useful in

tuning the critical clock signals of an entire clock distribution network very late in the design

or layout stage17.

One important drawback with the single buffer replacement is the resulting

unbalancing of the buffer pull-ups and pull-downs as described in [45]. Again, this

unbalancing of the clock branch that contains the single-buffer being converted to SEC has

the effect of improving, or strengthening, the critical clock edge while degrading, or

weakening, the other clock edge; unfortunately, it also unbalances this clock branch with

respect to the other clock branches, potentially increasing the skewing effects of some intra-

die PVT variations. However, this unbalancing may be acceptable, and even desirable, for a

given clock distribution network, so the designer is advised to consider this trade-off when

using an individual SEC buffer for critical clock edge fine-tuning.

17
Recall from the previous chapter that properly orientated inverters can be modified from TC to SEC without any significant change in
layout area or power consumption.

82
4.2.2 Centering Tunable Buffers with SEC

The second usage of individual SEC for clock timing refinement involves the SEC

tunable buffer from the previous section. One common application of a tunable buffer

would be to include it within one clock branch in order to allow for clock edge adjustments

with respect to another untuned, or fixed, clock branch. Simply swapping one fixed buffer

for a tunable buffer, however, will necessarily increase the latency, or delay, of the tunable

clock branch, due to the larger loading of the tunable components, regardless of the tunable

buffer architecture. This consequence automatically skews the two clock signals with

respect to each other, and forces some type of timing re-design.

Similar to the re-timing explained in the preceding section, capacitive loads could be

placed on the untuned, or fixed, clock branch to re-align the two clock edges, but that

adjustment would have major repercussions throughout the rest of the clock tree timing.

Another option would be to insert similar tunable buffers in all clock branches, but only use

the tunable feature of the desired one. This method would slow the clock signal down in

every branch, and would also require significant additional layout area for the unused

tunable buffers. A better method of re-timing the two clock edges (tunable branch versus

fixed branch) into synchronization would be to speed up the tunable clock buffer branch by

an amount equal to its larger loading delay; thereby canceling-out its inherent timing

mismatch and leaving all of the fixed clock branches unmodified.

83
 Figure 4.7 : Centering the SEC tunable buffer

Figure 4.7 represents two paths of a typical H-tree (shown in Chapter 3). Instead of

having to replace all 'like' buffers (level-2 buffers in this case) in a distribution network with

tunable buffers, it is possible to center a tunable branch to one or more non-tunable

branches, without modifying the non-tunable branches at all. With traditional, symmetric

clocking (TC) methods, adding tunability to a clock branch (the bottom one of Figure 4.7)

would increase its latency by some amount inherent to the design of the delay buffer (even

when it is tuned for no delay). This unwanted delay necessitates the addition of 'extra' delay

within any non-tunable branch (the top one of Figure 4.7) in order to keep them nominally

balanced/synchronized.

With the SEC method, the freedom of adjustable-β inverters allows for the range of

the tunable branch to be easily centered on the non-tunable branch(es). Just as switching an

INVt (β=2.5) to an INVf (β=0.56) reduces the delay through the inverter, lowering the β

even further, say to tsi-INVf (β=0.21), can speed up the tunable branch with respect to the

84
non-tunable, reference branch enough to center the tuning range. This centered tuning range

allows both positive and negative tuning for skew compensation.

By centering the tunable range around a standard SEC buffer, not all buffers on a

given level of the H-tree would need to be replaced with tunable buffers (TB) to keep the H-

tree in balance. For example, in Figure 4.7, each level 1b buffer branches out to two level 2

buffers, one up and one down. A tuning scheme could be developed, as partially shown in

Figure 4.7, in which both of the 'up' level-2 buffers are kept as regular SEC (non-tunable)

buffers while both of the 'down' level-2 buffers are replaced with tunable buffers. Then, the

'down' buffers could be tuned (positively or negatively) to be in sync with the 'up' buffers.

4.2.3 Individual SEC Buffer Limitations and Conclusions

The individual β sizing of SEC buffers can be used for clock edge timing

refinements with minimal impact to the rest of the clock distribution network. Most

significantly, adjustments of a single clock buffer's β can be performed to either speed-up or

slow-down the critical clock edge of any branch of a clock distribution tree. This SEC

technique will impair the non-critical clock edge to some extent, but so long as the single

buffer adjustment is made within a reasonable level of asymmetry, the impact on the

neglected clock edge will be very minor and inconsequential to the overall circuit's timing.

This single buffer adjustment has been proposed for clock branch fine-tuning to synchronize

all of the clock tree leaf clocks, as well as for delay buffer centering to allow for both

positive and negative delay tuning with a single tunable buffer.

85
4.3 SEC Application Limitations and Summary

The novel SEC method improves timing performance by trading off the clock period

between the critical and neglected edges, but this method would primarily be useful in ASIC

circuit designs operating at less than the maximum allowable frequency of a given CMOS

process. This limitation is because the initial clock phase grows in duration as it propagates

through the clock network. However, the allowable frequency can be extended by

shortening the initial clock signal (root clock) to a minimally-sized pulse that is allowed to

grow in size (due to the neglected clock edge) as it propagates throughout the clock tree.

Therefore, a minor design change to generate this initial pulse clock is recommended when

using the SEC approach.

Also, if both the pull-up and pull-down transistors of a buffer are on simultaneously,

short-circuit current will flow from Vdd to Ground. Therefore, the slow transition of the

neglected edge in the SEC method must be handled carefully. The smaller devices of these

buffers naturally reduce the level of short-circuit current; however, SEC buffers should be

terminated by a final symmetric TC buffer to clean up the neglected clock edge before

driving the FFs.

The first application of the SEC method involved converting an entire clock

distribution H-tree from TC to SEC. By shifting the clock buffer resources already available

from equal rise/fall buffers to alternating fast-rise/fast-fall buffers, significant reductions in

latency, skew, and jitter can be achieved with virtually no penalty in clock buffer area or

power consumption. HSPICE simulations show that these new INVr and INVf buffers can

be simply dropped into an existing TC H-tree buffer distribution network to effectively

improve clock timing performance by over 20% or to reduce power by 12%. This new SEC

86
technique could also be utilized in other clock distribution networks (grid, hybrid) with

similar results, although this usage was not demonstrated in the research work presented

here.

Next, the SEC buffer was given tunability by designing a single-sided delay buffer

(tsi-INVf) that allows for four linear tuning steps. The single-sided feature was necessary to

only target the critical clock edge while allowing the neglected clock edge to pass without

further degradation. These tunable buffers will be necessary in adaptive skew compensation

schemes that are becoming increasingly popular at reducing intra-die PVT variations, post-

silicon. (One such scheme is presented in the following chapter.)

Finally, a simple but powerful application of individual SEC buffers to fine tune a

selected branch of any clock network (TC or SEC) was described. This single SEC buffer

does degrade the non-critical clock edge slightly, but since it is not a series of SEC buffers

(such as the full-chip SEC application), the neglected edge impairment does not accumulate

significantly. One specialized implementation of this individual SEC β sizing has been

shown to allow for both positive and negative clock edge tuning with respect to an

unmodified, non-tunable clock branch. Furthermore, if the new SEC buffer is chosen in

accordance to the critical clock edge then the clock signal can be sped-up (i.e., using an

INVr buffer to speed-up the rising edge); but, if it is chosen in opposition to the critical

clock edge then the clock signal can be slowed down (i.e., using an INVf buffer to slow

down the rising edge).

87
Chapter 5 : Ring Tuning for Post-Silicon Clock Deskewing18

In Chapter 3, a complete clock distribution H-tree was constructed using SEC buffers

to improve clock performance in a pre-silicon context. In this chapter, the new SEC clock

tree is outfitted with an active clock de-skewing system to further improve clock

performance, but this time in the context of post-silicon adjustments. Note that the SEC

buffers are not a necessary component of this deskewing system; however, since SEC

narrows the skew range over traditional clock buffers, using SEC allows for a finer

resolution in the deskewing system, ultimately resulting in lower clock skews. Alternately,

fewer tuning bits may be required for an SEC implementation compared to a traditional

implementation with the same tuning resolution.

This active clock deskewing mode is intended to operate autonomously only at start-

up to monitor and adjust for any initial clock skew which may be caused by intra-die PVT

variations. It should be disabled during normal circuit operation to prevent any possible

ongoing clock edge adjustments.19 It consists of multiple deskew loops (or DLLs) linked

together in a ring fashion to share clock phase information across the entire chip, hence the

name Ring Tuning.

This chapter is organized as follows. First, the overall context of deskewing systems

will be revisited. Next, the individual components and DLL design for the particular deskew

loop utilized in this research will be presented. Then, the design considerations for creating

a complete ring tuning system from multiple deskew loops will be covered, including the

18
The research covered in this chapter will be published in: J. Mueller and R. Saleh, "Autonomous, multi-level ring tuning scheme for
post-silicon active clock deskewing over intra-die variations," to be published in IEEE TVLSI,14 pages, 2010.
19
Note that this system is capable of automatically correcting for clock skews that may arise during normal circuit operation, but such
tuning corrections are bound to result in interim clock skew and jitter during any re-tuning process. Therefore, depending upon the given
circuit, it may be preferable to disable the autonomous skew tuning and to simply tolerate any clock skew that may arise during circuit
operation.

88
possibility of using multiple ring tuning connections in a multi-level, hierarchical fashion.

Finally, the simulation results of a representative full-chip clock implementation of both

single-level and multi-level ring tuning will be presented.

5.1 Overview of Active Clock Deskewing

An overview of post-silicon, autonomous clock tuning will now be presented. As

mentioned in Section 2.3.2, active clock deskewing loops have been used individually, much

like a single DLL, to tune two clocks and/or clock zones of a chip [49], but as chip

complexities increase, more than two clock zones must be tuned. Therefore, multiple

deskewing loops have been serially connected together in a cyclic fashion [57], but their

cyclic design leaves them susceptible to stability concerns such as mode-lock, mode-lock

oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation, as previously described in Section 2.3.2.2.

Consequently, acyclic designs have been proposed to address the stability issues [61], but

their requirement for global control to handle the out of range problem, as described in

Section 2.3.2.3, makes them complicated to implement.

In this research, a new type of cyclic architecture will be proposed. It will be called

Ring Tuning, and it will be designed to address the stability issues of mode-lock, mode-lock

oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation traditionally inherent in cyclic systems, while

avoiding the out of range problem inherent in acyclic systems. Multiple instances of a

deskew loop will be interlinked by their phase detectors in a unidirectional cyclic or ring

structure to collectively provide skew control simultaneously across the entire chip. The

mode-lock problem will be addressed with a wider skew-range converging phase detector.

The mode-lock oscillation and cyclic-feedback oscillation problems will both be addressed

by slowing down the tuning adjustments of the multiple deskew loops; this 'dampening' of

89
the feedback adjustments can be obtained either by stepping through the multiple loops one-

at-a-time or by widening the skew threshold of the phase detector, as further explained in

Section 5.4.1.2.

This ring tuning design provides a stable means of tuning multiple, distributed clock

zones into synchronization without the need for any global control, making it easier to

implement and operate than previous designs. However, stringing together multiple tuning

zones will become less efficient as the number of tuning zones increases. The skew bound

of a single-level ring tuning system will rise linearly with the number of tuning zones.

Therefore, a hierarchical ring tuning system will be proposed to manage this skew bound

metric for systems with more tuning zones.

First, the fundamental sub-system of this multiple-zone, active clock deskewing

configuration is described outside the context of Ring Tuning. This sub-system is called a

deskew loop, and it closely resembles a traditional delay-locked loop (DLL).

5.2 Three Components for the Deskew Loops

The novel ring tuning design proposed in this chapter uses multiple instances of

deskew loops (or digital DLLs) to autonomously perform post-silicon active clock

deskewing. Each of these deskew loops will operate individually like a traditional DLL, so

their stand-alone design will now be discussed, outside the context of ring tuning. Later, in

Section 5.4, they will be linked together into the ring tuning configuration for stable self-

tuning of the entire clock system. The three main components (i.e., Up/Down Detector,

Thermometer Code Generator, and Tunable Buffer) of these specially designed deskew

loops are shown in the block diagram of Figure 5.1.

90
 Figure 5.1 : DLL design for use in ring tuning

The Up/Down Detector (UDD) measures the skew between the reference clock and

the leaf clock being tuned. Any skew of greater magnitude than UDD's threshold will

trigger either an UP or DOWN signal to indicate that the bits of the Tunable Buffer (TB)

should be adjusted. The UP/DOWN signal is converted via the Thermometer Code

Generator (TCG) into a 3-bit thermometer code that is fed directly to the TB's three

programmable bits. Since the purpose of this active clock deskewing system is to align two

clock signals, much like a typical digital DLL, the sub-blocks of both are very similar and

the two can be related block-by-block in terms of their functionality, as is done in the

sections that follow.

5.2.1 Up/Down Detector (UDD)

UDD sub-block acts similarly to the phase detector of a typical DLL. The purpose

of UDD is to send an UP signal to the remaining clock deskewing system when the delay of

its TB should be adjusted up, and to send a DOWN signal when its TB should be adjusted

down, thereby minimizing the skew between the two clock signals. There are two important

design considerations regarding UDD: 1.) it must deliver accurate clock signals to UDD for

comparison, and 2.) it must set the up and down thresholds of UDD precisely.

91
 First, the UDD can only be as accurate as its input signals, but unlike a typical DLL,

the two clocks being compared here are not available at the same location on the chip.

Therefore, ‘sense’ lines from the two clocks (labeled clk L and clk R in Figure 5.2) must be

carefully routed to the UDD in order to preserve their true timing edges relative to each

other. As such, the UDD should be placed directly in the center of the sources of these two

clock signals being measured, and proven buffer sizing and buffer insertion techniques

should be used to create a mirrored signal delivery path with sufficient accuracy. As

illustrated in Figure 5.2, the initial inverter is minimally sized to reduce the loading on the

clock signal, but sequentially larger inverters are added to boost the drive strength

adequately for the metal lines' loadings, indicated by the rectangles. Furthermore, all of the

inverters used in this top schematic of Figure 5.2 are Single-Edge Clocking (SEC) buffers,

since the SEC method results in reduced latency and skew, therefore higher accuracy, as

explained in the preceding chapters and in [72].

Figure 5.2 : UDD schematic

92
 Second, the UDD must be both accurate at detecting skews greater than a designed

threshold and symmetrical about the zero skew axis, such that the negative skew threshold is

equal but opposite to the positive skew threshold. The accuracy of this UDD is obtained by

using the setup time of a simple dynamic D-flip-flop (DFF) as UDD's threshold. By altering

the size of the input transmission-gate (shown in the lower portion of Figure 5.2 on the left),

the setup time of this DFF can be set to the desired value. Threshold adjustments in the

range of picoseconds can be obtained in this fashion. Note that this very simple UDD

design is susceptible to meta-stability problems, but it is used in this thesis for its simplicity

and ease of simulation. For a production chip, a more robust phase comparator design such

as in [49] or [73] should be used, and care must be taken to ensure that any additional

latency of the phase comparator does not compromise the stability of the adaptation scheme.

The symmetry about zero skew is easily obtained by using one of these DFFs (clk L

connected to the D input and clk R to the clk input) to check for negative skews and to

trigger the UP signal whenever it is greater than the threshold, and using an exact duplicate

but oppositely connected DFF (clk L connected to the clk input and clk R to the D input) to

check for positive skews and to trigger the DOWN signal whenever it is greater than the

threshold.

UDD's signals are important in guaranteeing DLL locking and system stability. This

can be best illustrated by the graph of Figure 5.3. The UP and DOWN signals are both

logical, DC signals, either logical high or logical low. When the measured skew (as plotted

on the x-axis of Figure 5.3) is more than the negative threshold, Sth-, and less than the

positive threshold, Sth+, then both UP and DOWN will be low and the system is considered

'locked'. As with a typical DLL, when this system is in the locked state it will be in the hold

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mode, and no tuning adjustments will be made. If, however, the measured skew is greater in

magnitude then either of the two thresholds, then either an UP or DOWN signal will be high

in order to appropriately adjust the clock. As seen in the graph of Figure 5.3, the UP and

DOWN signals can never both be high (or active) simultaneously, thereby eliminating any

possible control contention.

Figure 5.3 : UDD locking region

The UP and DOWN signals have been designed as DC (logical) values for two

important reasons. First, since UDD is located at the middle of the two clocks being

synchronized, some signal(s) will have to be routed to the TB in order to deliver UDD’s

determined tuning adjustments. Routing a pulse-width signal or an analog voltage signal

(both commonly found in PLL or DLL designs) across a relatively large portion of the die

would be difficult, whereas routing two DC logical signal lines is relatively easy. Second,

having the output of UDD as DC logic signals allows for logical operations to be used on

these control signals (if desired). Two or more UDDs could be logically combined to create

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a cumulative, more representative UP/DOWN control signal for its TB. For example, two

UDDs could be connected across two pairs of clocks and a simple AND logic operation

could be used to trigger the UP/DOWN signal for its TB only when both of the two UDDs

agree on their measured skews, as depicted in Figure 5.4. This averaging or filtering of the

signals reduces PVT variability impacts on the feedback and thereby helps to stabilize the

overall system's operation. Once the UP/DOWN decision has been made by UDD(s), with

or without logical combinations, those signals must be converted into bits for the loop

system’s tuning adjustments.

Figure 5.4 : Logical Operation on Multiple UDDs

5.2.2 Thermometer Code Generator (TCG)

TCG performs the same basic operation as the Counter/Digital Loop Filter in a

typical DLL. TCG takes the control signals from UDD and converts them into a control

word to adjust TB’s programmable delay (much like a DLL’s Digitally Controlled Delay

Line). Additionally, the conversion time of these signals to a 3-bit thermometer code by

TCG acts as a low-pass filter in the overall active deskewing loop, effectively providing

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stability to its operation. The basic design of this TCG has been taken from [74] and a

simplistic representation of its operation is shown in Figure 5.5.

The general principle behind this [74] design is to connect two chains of buffers such

that they are competing with each other over the high or low state of the three thermometer

bits (tbit3, tbit2, and tbit1). As shown in Figure 5.5, the upper chain of buffers is fed by a

low state and is triggered by the DOWN signal, while the lower chain of buffers is fed by a

high state and is triggered by the UP signal. In this simplified example, tbit3 is shown to be

at a logic '0', tbit1 is at a logic '1', and tbit2 is somewhere in between a '0' and '1', as

represented by the '0~1'. Note that buffers d3 and u3 both agree that tbit3 should be '0',

since the input to buffer d3 is low and the input to buffer u3 is not high. Likewise, buffers

u1 and d1 agree that tbit1 be '1', since u1's input is high and d1's input is not low. Therefore,

the tbit3 and tbit1 lines will maintain their logic levels due to the charge held on the small

resistor-capacitors shown in the figure. The state of tbit2, however, is in direct contention

from the d2 and u2 buffers -- d2 is trying to pull tbit2 low, while u2 is trying to pull it high.

Figure 5.5 : TCG simplified functional schematic [74]

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 If more DOWN pulses were sent than UP pulses, then d2 would eventually win its

battle to pull tbit2 low. Conversely, more UP pulses would pull tbit2 high. In essence, this

contended bit is acting like a common charge pump controlled by UP and DOWN pulses

from a common phase detector. Once the state of tbit2 has been settled, then the contended

bit will shift, to tbit1 if the DOWN signal wins or to tbit3 if the UP signal wins, and tbit2

will be held stable by its resistor-capacitor. This bit under contention can shift left and right

through the buffer chains depending upon the UP and DOWN signals, and it therefore

produces a true thermometer code.

In normal operation if only DOWN signals were sent, the three bits would

progressively transition to low from tbit3 to tbit2 to tbit1 (left-to-right). Likewise, if only

UP signals were sent, the bits would transition to high in reverse order from tbit1 to tbit2 to

tbit3 (right-to-left). Thus, the three bits always maintain the thermometer code word

structure (zeroes on the left and ones on the right). A transition point that is not fully high or

not fully low, must exist somewhere in between the fixed low input on the left and the fixed

high input on the right. The original paper [74] details the simple design techniques for

resolving this '0~1' bit.

Another useful feature (not depicted in this figure) of this TCG design is the ability

to lock-in the value of bits when their state is known, thereby removing the ongoing

contention from as many bits as possible. As per the definition of a thermometer code, all

bits to the left of the transition point must be low (or zero), and all bits to the right of it must

be high (or one). If tbit3 is high, then tbit2 is locked high, and since tbit2 is high, then tbit1

is also locked high. On the other hand, if tbit1 is low, then tbit2 is locked low, and since

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tbit2 is low, then tbit3 is also locked low. This lock-in feature also helps to improve the

stability of the TCG and to reduce its power consumption.

Figure 5.6 : Pulse generator for TCG

The primary concern in implementing this TCG design is to match the two

competing buffer chains. Consequently, small-sized transistors can be used to minimize the

area and power consumption. In fact, only 78 small transistors are used in the entire TCG

design, so it can be easily placed right next to the TB with just one simple, additional change

made to UDD's signals. The UP/DOWN DC signals must be converted into pulses with a

simple clocked NAND pulse generator as shown in Figure 5.6. The pulse width is adjusted

by the sizing of the delay inverters to properly control the TCG. A pulse that is too wide

will overdrive the up (or down) buffer chain, and TCG will transition through the bits too

quickly. Conversely, a pulse that is too narrow will under-drive the chain, and it will fail to

transition the bits at all. The pulses for this implementation have been sized such that they

step TCG bits up or down a single bit in about 2 clock cycles.

It is important to note that the UDD and TCG have been designed so that tuning

adjustments are carried out only one tuning step at a time to ensure system stability. Even if

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a large skew of two (or more) TB tuning steps exists between the reference and tuned

clocks, UDD+TCG would only adjust its TB one step, reevaluate the clock skew, adjust TB

another step, reevaluate, and so on.

5.2.3 Tunable Buffer (TB)

The TB acts like the Digitally-Controlled Delay line of a typical DLL. It is simply a

clock buffer, or inverter, that has some means to provide for an adjustable delay. The

single-sided starved inverter configuration shown in Figure 4.2 and from [75] has been

chosen for this implementation. Since a thermometer code is the most convenient way to

adjust the delay in these active deskewing loops, the footers of these TBs have been sized to

allow for four linear steps of a 3-bit thermometer-code selectable delay.

As PVT varies for both inter- and intra-die cases, it is important that the tunable

delay buffer range continues to span the desired tuning range (50ps for this case), and also

that the step size, ss, (defined as the distance between any two adjacent tuning steps)

remains relatively constant. As explained later, this step size will be fundamental in

designing the UDD's threshold, Sth, for system stability. Data has shown this ss value

(nominally 16.7ps) to vary from ~13ps to ~20ps over PVT variations for this particular 50ps

TB [75], which is sufficient for its use in this deskewing system.

5.3 Deskew Loop Design for Stable Operation

Now that the three basic components of the special deskew loop have been

described, the deskew loop itself must be properly designed to ensure stable operation.

Once again, the stable locking discussion of this section address the stand-alone operation of

the deskew loop — outside the context of ring tuning. In Section 5.4, the special

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considerations due to the cyclic, ring tuning connection of multiple instances of these

deskew loops will be presented.

Since these deskew loops will be widely distributed across the entire chip, they will

all be subjected to various intra-die PVT variations. Furthermore, the multiple deskew loops

used in ring tuning are all expected to have similar operating functionality. Therefore, these

distributed deskew loops must be more robustly designed than a traditional, stand-alone

DLL that operates individually and is locally positioned. Two elements of the deskew loop

stability will be discussed here; the first one dealing with the loop delay of the deskew loop,

and the second one dealing with the resolutions of the measurement (UDD) and adjustment

(TB) blocks.

5.3.1 Deskew Loop Delay Analysis

The first design consideration for deskew loop stability involves the complete time

delay of the DLL feedback loop. The relevant components of Figure 5.1 have been redrawn

in Figure 5.7 to illustrate the DLL feedback loop. Derivation of complex Laplace Transfer

functions for each component, followed by open-loop and closed-loop system analysis, is

outside the scope of this research. However, the main consideration for this DLL's loop

stability can be summarized as follows.

Figure 5.7 : Loop delay consideration for stability

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 Unstable operation may occur if adjustments to the TB are made based upon 'old'

UDD measurement data. For example, if the UDD sends an UP signal, there will exist a

finite period of time, called the loop delay, for that signal to propagate to the TCG, adjust

the TCG up one step, propagate to the TB, adjust the TB up one step, propagate through the

remaining clock distribution network, and finally be measured back at the UDD. During

that loop delay time, the UDD may still be measuring the old clock skew data and may be

sending another, superfluous, UP signal. For stability, design of the deskew loop must

ensure that the tuning effect of each TCG adjustment be measured before another tuning

step is made.

The particular deskew loop used in this research utilizes the TCG as a low-pass filter

to address this loop delay concern. The combined TB, clock distribution network, plus

UDD delay is designed to be less than a clock cycle, while the TCG step adjustment delay is

designed to be two clock cycles (as described in Section 5.2.2). Therefore, accurate clock

skew information will always be passed from the UDD to TCG faster than the TCG could

act upon it. Hence, TB adjustments will not be made based upon 'old' measurement data.

Note that this analysis considers only the time-varying effects of TB adjustments on

the measured clock skew. Any time-varying effects of PVT variations on clock skew are

assumed to be much slower (of lower frequency) than the loop delay; therefore, the time

varying effect of PVT variations can be safely ignored in this analysis.

5.3.2 Measurement and Adjustment Resolutions

Deskew loop stability may not exist if the adjustment resolution (the TB's step-size)

is greater than the measurement resolution (the UDD's threshold). The skew threshold, Sth,

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of the UDD (as shown in Figure 5.3) is the design parameter that will ensure stable locking

of the deskew loop over PVT variations.

Figure 5.8 shows two cases of UDD threshold values. On the left side, Sth is set to

the theoretical minimum value of half of TB's step size, (Sth = 0.5ss). On the right side, Sth

is increased to 1.5 times that theoretical minimum, (Sth = 0.75ss). Note that the 1.5X

increase (for nominal models) is chosen here to encompass the expected PVT variations of

this example – a design with less variation could employ a smaller increase while a design

with more variation could employ a larger one. The graphs at the top of Figure 5.8 show the

UP/DOWN signals plotted against the measured clock skew (similar to Figure 5.3). Below

those graphs are three line diagrams for each showing the tunable bit transitions of TB as the

active deskewing loop seeks to lock (highlighted by the shaded region in between -Sth and

+Sth). As indicated by the arrows on these line diagrams, if the measured skew is outside of

the locked region, then TB's tuning bits will be incremented or decremented one step by

UDD+TCG to another (better) value of lesser skew. Since TBs used in this example are 3-

bit linear, there are four possible delay tuning states (000, 001, 011, and 111).

Figure 5.8 : Stable locking over PVT variations

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 For the first line diagram of Figure 5.8, the initial measured clock skew, S0, happens

to align with one of the tunable steps (001) right on the zero skew axis. In this case, both

the left and right graphs operate similarly, and both obtain lock as follows:

• TB at 000: UDD measures a negative skew greater than the threshold, so the

UP signal is sent to TCG and TB is moved to 001.

• TB at 001: UDD measures no skew, so the system is locked.

• TB at 011: UDD measures a positive skew greater than the threshold, so the

DOWN signal is sent to TCG and TB is moved to 001.

• TB at 111: UDD measures a positive skew, sends DOWN signal, and TB is

moved to 011.

If however, the initial clock skew happens to be shifted to (S0-0.5ss), as depicted in

the second line diagram, then the graph on the left will have two unstable locking states.

These unstable states result when TB delay tuning steps (001 and 011, in this case) align

right on UDD thresholds. System oscillation for the left side design may result as follows:

• TB at 000: UDD measures a negative skew and TB is moved to 001.

• TB at 001: UDD may or may not measure negative skew, so the system may

stay locked or TB may be moved to 011.

• TB at 011: UDD may or may not measure positive skew, so the system may

stay locked or TB may be moved to 001.

• TB at 111: UDD measures a positive skew and TB is moved to 011.

The uncertainty in these UDD threshold comparisons comes from all possible design

and/or PVT variations that could potentially affect the measured clock signals, UDD

thresholds, and TB step sizes. There are very many possibilities for even small variations in

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these comparisons, so some uncertainty must be expected. The design on the left side

(Sth=0.5ss) does not contain any design margin for these variations, and erratic state jumping

and/or full oscillation (between 001 and 011) will almost certainly result. However, this

problem can be easily resolved by designing Sth=0.75ss as shown in the graph on the right

side of Figure 5.8. For this same initial skew case, the design on the right side does not have

any unstable locking states, so it will lock properly and stay locked. In fact, as seen in the

diagram, it will have two valid locking states, so TB may end up at either 001 or 011 – both

within the chosen design window, and both acceptable for stable operation.

If the initial clock skew is further shifted to (S0-0.75ss), as depicted in the third line

diagram of Figure 5.8, then the graph on the right will have one unstable locking state (001

in this case). However, one unstable state is not enough to initiate oscillation, so if the

system happens to jump out of that one unstable state (001), it will necessarily land in a

stable locking state (011) that has sufficient design margin safely inside the opposite

threshold. Therefore, for this third line diagram, both the left and right side will ultimately

obtain stable lock.

Note that this technique of widening the thresholds to stabilize the DLL locking

could result in non-optimum TB bit choices. As shown in the third line diagram on the right

side of Figure 5.8, this stable system could very possibly maintain lock with the TB set to

001, even though a setting of 011 would result in a smaller skew. (This system is not 'smart'

enough to find that better state.) It will guarantee that the measured skew is within the

chosen design threshold window before it locks, but it will not guarantee that the measured

skew is at the absolute minimum. Some system resolution is being traded off in order to

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ensure stable DLL locking over PVT variations -- but clock stability is critical, and there are

other ways to improve resolution, so this tradeoff is a very good one.

5.4 Multiple Deskew Loop Connection for Ring Tuning

Now that the design of the deskew loop has been presented, the method of

connecting multiple deskew loops together to create ring tuning will be discussed. In

Section 5.4.1, the motivation for moving from an acyclic connection to a cyclic connection

(ring tuning), and ultimately to a hierarchical cyclic connection, will be presented. In

Section 5.4.2, an example of single-level ring tuning for the generic H-tree will be

described, and in Section 5.4.3 a second level of ring tuning will be added to the generic H-

tree to create a complete hierarchical (multi-level) ring tuning system.

5.4.1 The Case for Ring Tuning over Acyclic Tuning

As previously described in Section 2.3.2.2, the cyclic connection for multiple zone

deskewing has been abandoned by modern practitioners [61] in favor of an acyclic

connection. The acyclic connection avoids the inherent cyclic stability concerns of mode-

lock, mock-lock oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation, as defined in Section 2.3.2.2.

However, this acyclic connection creates a new problem of out of range, as defined in

Section 2.3.2.3, which requires a global system controller. Here, in order to eliminate the

need for any global controller, a new variety of cyclic connection is being proposed, called

Ring Tuning.

First, this cyclic ring tuning architecture will be compared to the acyclic design.

Next, the design techniques for ensuring ring tuning stability (i.e., avoiding mode-lock,

mode-lock oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation) will be presented. Note that these

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three stability concerns are due to the cyclic connection of ring tuning, and they are in

addition to the individual deskew loop stability issues discussed in Section 5.3. Finally, the

metric of skew bound will be presented, which will lead to the proposed use of two,

hierarchical ring tuning systems.

5.4.1.1 Avoiding the Global Controller

This section provides a comparison of two versions of the newly-proposed Ring

Tuning method with the previously published acyclic tuning method from [61]. Table 5-1

contains the comparison data for the three methods. The first column lists the previous

acyclic method described in Section 2.3.2.3. The second column lists a single-level

implementation of the newly-proposed ring tuning method called "RT-3", since it is ring

tuning applied only at clock level 3 on a total of 16 tuning zones. (The clock levels are

shown in Figure 3.3, and the tuning zone selection process is explained in Section 5.4.2.1)

The third column lists a hierarchical implementation of the newly proposed ring tuning

method called "QRT-2&3", since it is two-level quad-ring tuning (or four zone ring tuning)

at clock levels 2 and 3.

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 Table 5-1 : Comparison of Acyclic Method to Two Ring Tuning Methods

As the table indicates, each method uses roughly the same number of tunable buffers

(TBs) and phase detectors (PDs). Likewise, each method has techniques to eliminate the

oscillation problems associated with mode-lock and the out of range problem resulting from

a finite number of tuning steps. However, it is the complexity of these solutions that may

motivate the ring tuning method to be chosen over the acyclic method. First, the spinning

wheel algorithm (s.w.a.) and the range sharing algorithm (r.s.a.) which are introduced in

[61] must be summarized here:

Spinning wheel algorithm (s.w.a.) - The s.w.a. is relatively simple algorithm for

passing phase information from one clock zone to its neighboring clock zone. In [61] it is

proposed for the acyclic system shown in the first column of Table 5-1, but its general

operation could be applied to a cyclic system, such as ring tuning, as well. Its sole purpose

is to transition through all the clock zone boundaries one-at-a-time. For the acyclic design

shown here it would begin at the reference PLL in the upper left and transition over-and-

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down in the direction of the arrows to the last tuning zone in the lower right, before starting

over again in the upper left. For the ring tuning designs it would begin at one of the clock

zones and then travel around the ring in the direction of the arrows completing the ring and

then starting over. The s.w.a. adjusts each clock zone individually, while holding all other

clock zones inactive, before proceeding to the next clock zone, thereby stepping through the

progression of clock zones in a controlled order one-at-a-time.

Range sharing algorithm (r.s.a.) - The r.s.a. is an extension of the s.w.a. created

specifically to address the out of range problem of the acyclic systems. The r.s.a. progresses

one-at-a-time like the s.w.a., but it also checks for tuning buffers that have reached their

tuning limit. If such an 'out of range' tuning buffer is found, then the r.s.a. will immediately

return to the reference PLL zone and 'borrow' some of its tuning range. At that point, the

r.s.a. will start over, progressing through the clock zones in order as before. Since the cyclic

designs are naturally immune to the out of range problem, they would not require the r.s.a.

For the comparison of this section, it is important to note that the range sharing algorithm is

considerably more difficult to implement than the spinning wheel algorithm.

Returning to Table 5-1, it will be shown how both ring tuning methods (RT-3 and

QRT-2&3) can utilize the s.w.a. to avoid the stability problems of mode-lock oscillation and

cyclic-feedback oscillation. Furthermore, both ring tuning methods will be immune from

the out of range problem provided that their tuning zones are allowed to overlap by n/2

tuning steps, where n=# of tuning zones. This relatively small overlap of tuning zones

allows for a tuning zone which has reached its limit to still participate in the ring tuning

process with its neighboring tuning zones. Since this n/2 overlap is a very minor design

consideration for the TCG and TB blocks, it will not elaborated on further. Again, these two

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design techniques are easily implemented. But, the acyclic method requires the r.s.a. to

avoid its out of range problem, and this r.s.a. is more difficult to implement. Therefore, to

eliminate the need for this complex r.s.a. and its accompanying global controller, the ring

tuning method is pursued here.

5.4.1.2 Avoiding Cyclic Instabilities

Now that a cyclic method (ring tuning) has been chosen to avoid the complex global

controller required by the acyclic out of range problem, the inherent cyclic instabilities

defined in Section 2.3.2.2, namely mode-lock, mode-lock oscillation, and cyclic-feedback

oscillation must be addressed. Note that these three stability concerns are collectively listed

as Mode-lock in Table 5-2.

First, the classic problem of mode-lock is easily addressed by the design of the phase

discriminator (referred to as an Up/Down Detector from Section 5.2.1). As explained in

Section 2.3.2.2, mode-lock occurs when the deskew loop phase detector incorrectly locks

90˚ out of phase with its neighbor. If all four quadrants of a multi-tuning system lock 90˚

out of phase, then the system will remain incorrectly locked. The solution to mode-lock is to

design a phase detector that converges to the correct phase even when off by 90˚ or more.

As seen in Figure 5.3, the simple, digital phase discriminator (UDD) will converge to the

correct clock phase even when off by 359˚, so mode-lock will not be a concern with ring

tuning.

Next, the sustained flip-flopping problem of mode-lock oscillation must be

addressed. This back-and-forth oscillation is caused by the possibility of the deskew loop's

reference clock being adjusted at the same time that its tunable clock is being adjusted. As

mentioned previously, the tuned clock of one zone becomes the reference clock of its

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neighboring zone. There are two possible design fixes for mode-lock oscillation. 1.) The

spinning wheel algorithm could be implemented for the ring tuning, thereby ensuring that no

zone's tuned clock and reference clock can be concurrently adjusted. This fix solves mode-

lock oscillation without impacting the overall tuning resolution, but it requires the s.w.a.

controller. 2.) The skew threshold of the UDD could be increased by 2X to ensure that no

clock adjustments are undertaken unless the measured skew is twice the tuning step size.

Therefore, even if the tuned clock and reference clock both adjust concurrently, no back-

and-forth oscillation can occur. This fix solves mode-lock oscillation without the need for

any controller, but it worsens the overall tuning resolution by 2X.

Finally, the traveling wave problem of cyclic-feedback oscillation is addressed with

the same design fixes for mode-lock oscillation. The cyclic-feedback oscillation may occur

if an appropriately positioned 'wave' of clock phase is allowed to travel through the cyclic,

ring connection without attenuation. This 'attenuation' of the traveling wave can be obtained

by stepping through the ring tuning one step at a time with the s.w.a. Alternatively, it can be

obtained by widening the UDD skew threshold to twice the tuning step size, resulting in a

skew of two steps being adjusted with only one step. Either the s.w.a. or the UDD threshold

increase will solve the cyclic-feedback oscillation problem, with the same trade-offs

discussed above.

One additional aspect of ring tuning stability should be considered. In Section 5.3.1

the deskew loop delay was analyzed in order to ensure independent deskew loop stability.

Now that multiple deskew loops will be joined in a ring, the delay (or latency) around the

complete ring could impact overall system stability. Hence, attenuation of the adjustments

around the cyclic ring is critical. One way of attenuating is to delay the adjustment

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decisions until a complete ring delay has been made; therefore, it will not over-steer the

skew adjustment. Another way, described earlier as the UDD threshold widening, is to

attenuate the skew adjustments with a gain less than one, so that any measured input phase

must be greater than the output phase adjustment. This latter approach may take a while to

reach convergence. This has been a rather informal stability analysis, and a more formal

stability analysis is proposed for future work.

5.4.1.3 Improving Skew Bound Hierarchically

The primary metric for the comparison of Table 5-1 is the "skew bound". The skew

bound is chosen as a measure of the worst-case skew allowed by a deskewing system. For

these architectures it can be calculated as the theoretical resolution of the phase detectors

multiplied by the maximum clock tuning zone separation. To create a fair comparison, it is

assumed that each of the three methods employs phase detectors with the theoretical

minimum resolution of 0.5ss, where ss is the step size of the tunable buffers.

The acyclic method requires six steps to propagate from the top left clock reference

to the bottom right clock tuning zone; therefore, its separation is 6 steps and its skew bound

is 3ss, as shown in the table. The ring tuning methods have a clock tuning zone separation

equal to half of the number of tuning zones of the ring; therefore, RT-3's separation is 8

steps, and its skew bound is 4ss. This skew bound is slightly worse than the acyclic method,

but since it is obtained with fewer phase detectors and a simpler control algorithm (s.w.a. for

RT-3 instead of r.s.a. for acyclic), this tradeoff may be acceptable for a given circuit design.

However, if the number of clock zones were to increase above the 16 used here, the skew

bound of the single-level ring tuning method would increase at a much faster rate than that

of the acyclic method, so an improvement to the single-level ring tuning is needed.

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 One such improvement, compatible with the clock tree distributions used here, is

hierarchical ring tuning. A second level of ring tuning has been added at clock level 2, and

the single ring tuning of 16 zones (RT-3) has been divided into four ring tunings of four

zones each, in order to create the QRT-2&3 method. The multi-level ring tuning of QRT-

2&3 is shown to match the skew bound performance of the acyclic method. Calculating the

clock zone separation and phase detector resolution of the multi-level system is not as

straightforward as the other two since QRT-2&3 uses different clock zone sizes and

different tuning step sizes for each level, but sizing adjustments relative to clock level 3 can

be made. As shown in the table, QRT-2&3 can match the 3ss skew bound of the acyclic

method. The QRT-2&3 method uses four more tunable buffers and four less phase detectors

than the acyclic method, but more importantly, the QRT-2&3 only requires the simpler

s.w.a. control, while the acyclic method requires the more complex r.s.a. control.

The design details for single-level ring tuning at clock level 2 (QRT-2) and multi-

level, hierarchical ring tuning (QRT-2&3) will now be presented in detail, followed by their

simulation results.

5.4.2 Single-level Ring Tuning for H-tree

The specific implementation of this ring tuning structure is the generic 4-level H-tree

clock distribution network with 64 clock leaves on a typical square chip used in previous

chapters (see Figure 3.3). However, the principles of ring tuning can be used for

autonomous clock deskewing with virtually any clock distribution network -- H-tree or non-

H-Tree, square chip or not. The primary goal of this hypothetical example is to demonstrate

how to distribute the root clock signal to all of the 64 leaf clocks with a reduced clock skew.

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5.4.2.1 Independent Tuning Zone Selection

First, the concept of independent tuning zones must be considered. Tuning zones are

quite simply created by the insertion of a tunable buffer (TB) within a clock branch. From

Figure 5.1, it is clear that the portion of the clock distribution network on the 'upstream', or

source, side (clock root side) of the TB is unaffected by its delay adjustments, whereas the

entire clock network on the 'downstream', or terminal, side (clock leaf side) of the TB is

affected by its delay settings. Therefore, it can be stated that tuning zones are created by the

locations of TBs, and that these tuning zones continue from their point in the clock network

all the way to the end clock leaves. The four diagrams of Figure 5.9 illustrate four possible

tuning zone sets for the chosen H-tree, each created by the placement of a TB at a different

clock level.

The number of tuning zones for a ring tuning system should now be considered.

Since ring tuning strings all the zones of a chosen clock level together in a loop, a ring

tuning implementation of Figure 5.9 (a) would be called RT-1a and would only link two

tuning zones. A ring tuning implementation of Figure 5.9 (d) would be called RT-3 (also

shown in the middle column of Table 5-1) and would link together 16 tuning zones.

Because the tuning zone separation grows linearly with the number of tuning zones, the

skew bound grows as well, so large rings of many tuning zones should be avoided for better

skew control.

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 Figure 5.9 : Four Possible Tuning Zones TBs at (a) level-1a, (b) level-2, (c) 2a, (d) 3

The size of each tuning zone can be better represented by redrawing the H-tree

distribution as a hierarchical tree structure as in Figure 5.10, with the root clock, or source,

at the bottom (level-1) branching up to the leaf clocks, or terminals, at the top (level-4). If

the TB were to be inserted at level-2 of this clock tree (as shown on the left side of the

diagram), then its tuning zone would encompass all of the buffers (23 in total) and wires and

chip area from that point upwards (as shaded in the diagram); similarly, if TB was inserted

at level-3 (as shown on the right side), then its tuning zone would be considerably smaller

(only 5 buffers plus wires).

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 Figure 5.10 : H-tree hierarchy (left half only)

Therefore, the selection of tuning zones must balance both the desire for simpler

control of fewer, large tuning zones with the desire for higher resolution of more, small

tuning zones. Considering the nature of PVT variation across this hypothetical square chip

along with the geometries of the H-tree clock buffer/wire network, four tuning zones (or

quadrants) as defined by TB placement at clock level-2, Figure 5.9 (b), has been chosen for

this example. Therefore, this particular implementation is called Quad Ring Tuning (QRT).

5.4.2.2 Ring Tuning Connection for Four Zones

Once the tuning zones have been chosen and TBs have been placed for this single

QRT case at clock level-2, as in Figure 5.9 (b), then the control of the four TBs must be

established. Inclusion of four TBs allows for adjustability of four independent tuning zones,

but each TB’s tuning bits must be controlled somehow. This control stage is where the Ring

Tuning technique is employed. As illustrated in Figure 5.1, one UDD will be used to control

each TB (via TCG). The location of UDD should be chosen to minimize routing and

maximize skew measurement accuracy.

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 Consider the two examples of UDD placement depicted in Figure 5.11. The four

quadrants (or tuning zones) of the H-tree are designated LT, LB, RB, and RT for left-top,

left-bottom, right-bottom, and right-top, respectively. On the lower half of that chip, clock

signals from TBs at clock level-2 (LB and RB) are both routed to UDD near their midpoint.

This implementation has two major drawbacks. 1.) Large metal wires must be added,

routed, and buffered in order to deliver the two clock signals to the UDD. These additional

wires and buffers (indicated with the thick, dotted lines in the figure) must be large to

maintain accuracy of the UDD's skew measurement over PVT variations. 2.) The skew

measurement is being performed at level-2 of the clock tree, but the relevant clock skew is at

level-4, the clock leaves.

Figure 5.11 : UDD connections

A better implementation is shown in the upper half of the same diagram of Figure

5.11. UDD is placed at the level-4 clock leaves (one side from LT and the other from RT).

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This choice solves both problems just mentioned. 1.) No new, major clock routing wires

are needed -- the existing clock tree wires are sufficient (indicated with the thin dotted

lines). 2.) The skew measurement is performed at the level-4 of the clock -- where true

clock skew is defined. So, UDDs will be placed across adjacent clock leaves of neighboring

clock zones to simplify the design and routing. While this can be done easily in the classic

H-tree, designers will have to look for similar opportunities in other clock structures.

Figure 5.12 : QRT level-2 operation

Now that UDDs have been optimally located at the ends of adjacent clock leaves,

one UDD for each TB will be placed spanning each shared boundary of the four tuning

zones. They are all connected in a counter-clockwise ring to create the QRT structure, as

depicted in Figure 5.12. The skew measured across LT/RT boundary by the top UDD is

used to control TB of LT zone; LT/LB boundary skew controls LB TB; LB/RB controls RB;

and finally RB/RT controls RT, which completes the ring.

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 There are four complete active clock deskewing loops or DLLs (as described in

Figure 5.1) operating here, but because their control signals are derived from the skew

across the boundary of neighboring zones, they are all interlinked in a ring formation, as

indicated by the dotted lines and arrows of Figure 5.12. The feedback (or tuned) clock of

one zone becomes the reference clock of its counter-clockwise neighboring zone, and so on,

all the way around the ring.

In this example, the four UDDs are placed at the perimeter of the chip in order to

encompass maximum intra-die PVT variation. Although, as described previously, UDDs

could be placed anywhere along the zones' boundary; furthermore, multiple UDDs could be

combined with logical operands (such as AND or OR) if desired. Since this hypothetical

example is for a generic square chip without any special timing considerations or constraints

of the internal circuit sub-blocks, positioning four single UDDs at the chip’s perimeter as

shown are sufficient.

5.4.3 Hierarchical Ring Tuning for H-tree

The basic principle of QRT has been explained using clock tuning zones at clock

level-2 of the common H-tree, as depicted earlier in Figure 5.12. However, further analysis

of this 4-level H-tree’s structure reveals another possible implementation of QRT -- namely

at clock level-3. Four additional, complete QRT structures can be located hierarchically

within the initial QRT, as shown in Figure 5.13.

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 Figure 5.13 : QRT level-2&3 operation

Four distinct QRT ‘sub-systems’ for controlling the new TBs at clock level-3 can be

seen (one ring inside each of the LT, LB, RB, and RT quadrants). Each one of these new,

level-3 sub-system QRTs contains four UDDs at the clock leaf perimeter controlling four

TBs via four TCGs, for a total of sixteen additional UDDs, TCGs, and TBs. The small and

simple design of these three circuit sub-blocks allows them to be added at little additional

cost.

Except for TB’s tuning range and UDD’s threshold, these four new QRTs at level-3

are designed, connected, and operated exactly like the existing QRT at level-2. The original,

full-chip QRT (clock level-2) was designed for a tuning range of 50ps to cover PVT

variations expected across the entire full-chip. However, these new sub-quadrant QRTs

(clock level-3) span one-fourth of the chip area, and therefore they are designed with a

smaller tuning range of 20ps. Note that once the TB’s tuning range and number of steps

have been determined, its step size can be calculated, ss=(tuning_range/(#steps-1)), and then

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the corresponding UDD’s threshold is designed to be Sth=1.5ss, as previously explained.

These (4+1) QRT structures all operate concurrently, working to tune the (16+4) TBs such

that the (16+4) UDDs each obtain lock, even though they are all interrelated in some

manner.

The same UDD threshold design technique that guarantees one or two stable locking

states per active clock deskewing loop works to keep all of these (4+1) QRT systems

collectively stable. By using this two-level method of QRT, the clock skews of the

individual quadrants themselves are reduced by the level-3 QRT systems. Furthermore, the

intra-quadrant skew improvement in turn aids the operation of the overall level-2 QRT

system. Therefore, the sub-skews within each quadrant will be reduced and, additionally,

the full-chip clock skew will also be reduced.

5.5 H-tree Ring Tuning Simulation Results

HSPICE simulations were carried out to compare the clock skew of two static H-

trees (one using TC and one using SEC), and two active QRT systems (single-level and

multilevel). Both of the QRT systems are complete SEC systems (i.e., they use SEC clock

buffers instead of TC clock buffers), since SEC was already shown to outperform TC. It is

important to note, as described in Section 2.2, that a TC versus SEC comparison was made

previously by modeling PVT variations as worst-case process models, supply voltages, and

operation temperatures; however, a completely different approach for PVT variations is used

in this chapter. Here, the PVT variations are modeled at the higher level of transistor

strengths and wire loads. This alternative PVT variation model further (and independently)

confirms the reported clock timing improvements of SEC over TC, as demonstrated by the

following results.

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5.5.1 Full H-tree Netlist

The same generic fanout-4, 4-level H-tree for a hypothetical 10x10mm2 chip from

the preceding chapters was used in the simulations. For the two static clock tree cases, all

the clock buffers were TC and SEC, respectively. For the two active deskewing cases, the

QRT structures were designed into the H-tree at clock level-2 and level-3, as previously

described.

Time-domain transient simulations were run until steady-state was achieved (just a

few clock cycles for the static cases, but all DLLs must lock for the active cases). As

presented in Section 1.2, skew will be defined here as the difference in clock edge arrival

times for two different clock branches, Δti-j=ti-tj, and the goal will be to minimize the

maximum clock skew, given by the absolute value maximum of Δti-j=ti-tj for i ≠ j, where i

and j cover every clock leaf of the entire chip. When the range of delays for all 64 clock

leaves is considered, this maximum clock skew will be referred to as full-chip skew. The

resulting full-chip skews of the static SEC H-tree are compared to those of the static TC H-

tree for confirmation of the improved clock performance of SEC over TC. Then, full-chip

skews of the single and multi-level QRT cases are compared against those of the static SEC

for demonstration of the improved clock performance of this active deskewing system over a

static system.

As the HSPICE data presented below shows, even this very basic (only 3-bit TB)

QRT system can be used to reduce clock skew by over 50% versus an untuned, static H-tree.

Furthermore, the QRT ring consumes only 1mW of power and each DLL consists of three

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major blocks: UDD (20 small transistors20), TCG (78 small transistors), and TB (~4X the

size of a non-tunable clock buffer).

5.5.2 PVT Variation Modeling

Firstly, in order to tune away clock skew, clock signal delay variation must be

inserted into the nominal H-tree clock distribution network schematic for HSPICE, which is

initially created as perfectly balanced. This intra-die variation exists in real-world circuits

due to PVT variations. Each branch of the clock tree was subjected to different PVT

conditions; consequently, these PVT variations alter the clock signal’s timing as it

propagates from the single clock root to all of the 64 clock leaves, thereby creating clock

skew across the die.

The sources of these PVT variations are numerous, but they can all be classified into

two distinct types [2][17]: spatial variations, which vary across the surface of the die

according to some spatial, or x-y, pattern (e.g., concentric circles or cone function), and

random variations, which vary across the die’s surface according to some random function

(e.g., a Gaussian distribution). Certain PVT variations tend to follow a spatial pattern, while

other PVT variations tend to follow a random pattern, so both types of variation will be

combined for these simulations.

The random variations are the easiest to include in HSPICE’s Monte Carlo (M.C.)

simulations. Once a mean and standard deviation has been determined for a given

parameter, the HSPICE gauss() function can be called to assign that parameter a Gaussian

distributed random value for each M.C. simulation run. The spatial variations, however,

20
Note that this count would become somewhat larger if a design with adequate robustness to meta-stability was used

122
must be calculated into a matrix via an outside tool (in this case MATLAB), and then

superimposed atop the appropriately (x,y) segmented H-tree within the HSPICE netlist.

Traditional spatial variation modeling such as [76] would involve a multi-level

partitioning of the circuit followed by a data analysis procedure such a kriging21 to calculate

each partition’s correlation factor and construct a variogram (or structure function) that

defines the spatial random process [77]. However, such an analysis is not suitable in this

case since the entire QRT system is a relatively small number of elements that are widely

dispersed across the entire chip, and since no particular process data is available for

correlation analysis. Instead, the spatial random process in R2 space will be modeled with

the general expression, z = Z(x,y), from [77].

Previous work on spatial variation modeling [16][78] has produced surface plots of

this Z(x,y) function that closely resemble half sphere or cone shapes. Since the sharper peak

of the cone function has been empirically shown to produce a more severe test of QRT’s

deskewing capability, the following cone function has been chosen for these spatial variation

pattern:

(5-1)

where,

(x,y) = two dimensional Euclidean coordinates of the chip

(a,b) = center of the cone function within that (x,y) space

{The six center locations chosen for these are shown in Figure 5.14}

z = relative variation of spatially modeled parameter at (x,y) location of the chip

21
"Kriging" is a geostatistical term referring to techniques to interpolate the value, or surface function called a variogram, of a random
field. It can be used in PVT variation modeling to construct a thorough surface function of one or more spatial variations across the
surface of a chip.

123
 {This z value is scaled to range between +10% and -10% of the nominal.}

It is important to note that unlike a traditional spatial variation analysis that attempts

to precisely correlate process parameters by their proximity on the chip in order to model

real-world variations, these spatial variation simulations are primarily constructed to

introduce a maximum amount of clock skew in a chosen pattern (cone function) across the

full-chip in order to stress test QRT’s ability to tune away clock skew. Therefore, instead of

modeling the fundamental process parameters (such as Leff or Vth), this analysis will only

vary the two higher-level, composite parameters of transistor strengths and metal wire loads.

The resulting clock skew patterns have been compared to the global skew maps of [79] to

validate their usage here.

Figure 5.14 : Location of spatial variations

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 The cone function creates concentric circles of equal values centered at (a,b) which

radiate from its center linearly. For a non-inverted cone, its maximum value will be at the

center (or peak), and the minimum value will be at the outer (or largest) circle. The inverted

cone is just the opposite – the minimum is at the center and the maximum is at the outer

circle. Since the center of a PVT spatial variation could reasonably occur at any (x,y)

location on the die, six representative locations (designated A, B, C, D, E, and F) have been

chosen in the left-top quadrant of this hypothetical square chip as shown in Figure 5.14.

Because the QRT method is virtually identical for each quadrant, the remaining three

quadrants would be redundant to consider; therefore, these six spatial variations, plus their

inverses, will be used to represent the spatial PVT variations across this entire die – twelve

spatial variations over a single quadrant.

The mathematical models of PVT variations have been determined: random

variations will be modeled with a Gaussian distribution and spatial variations will be

modeled with cone functions (or concentric circles) and their inverses placed at six locations

across a quadrant. Next, the parameters that will be varied must be chosen. A clock tree

only consists of clock buffers and clock wires, so these two components are the only ones

that need to be varied. The variation (random and spatial) for these simulations is only

being included to create some initial clock skew in an otherwise nominal (ideally

symmetrical and balanced) clock tree; so, simpler, higher-level parameters of the clock

buffers and wires have been chosen to model these variations. Namely, the M=xx multiplier

of HSPICE (which scales a transistor’s channel width, leakage, capacitors, and resistors) has

been chosen to vary the clock buffers, and the length and the resistance and capacitance per

unit length have been chosen to vary the clock wires. These four variables along with the

125
real circuit parameters they are intended to model are listed in Table 5-2. Additionally, the

degree of spatial and random variation for each variable with respect to its nominal value (as

a percentage) is included in the same table.

Table 5-2 : PVT variations used in simulations

Real Circuit HSPICE Model Spatial Random
Parameters Variable Variation Variation
Leff, Vth, Multiplier
Transistors ±10% ±5%
Idrive, etc. (M=xx)
clock tree
Wire length ±5%
RC load
Metal Metal
Rwire/length ±10%
Wires resistivity
Metal
Cwire/length ±5%
capacitance

As shown in Table 5-2, the HSPICE element multiplier (M=xx) variable was used in

these simulations to model PVT variations that would impact the transistors by adjusting

their effective size and thereby their strength. Importantly, these variations affect all

transistors in the entire netlist, not just the clock buffer transistors. This transistor variation

is made up of a spatial component that is varied ±10% and a random component that is

varied ±5% about its nominal value.

Likewise, the metal wires used in the clock distribution are varied in both a spatial

(±5% each for total resistance & capacitance) and random (±10% for resistance per length

and ±5% for capacitance per length) component about their nominal values. For these

simulations, the spatial pattern for the metal wires and transistors is chosen to be the same

cone function (i.e., centered at the same x,y location); however, the two are correlated such

126
that weak transistors drive large wires (and strong transistors drive small wires) to magnify

their clock skew effect. This correlation between transistors strengths and wire sizes has

been chosen based upon a sampling of simulations resulting in slightly larger clock skews,

but other transistor/wire correlations are expected to produce similar skew results.

These levels of spatial and random variation have been chosen based upon previous

research [2][17][18][19], and confirmed to produce typical levels of clock skew in this

hypothetical H-tree case. The total PVT variation for a given parameter, P, is thus modeled

by the following equation [80].

P = Pnom + ΔPinter + ΔPspatial (x i , y i ) + ΔPrandom,i (5-2)

where Pnom = the nominal value of this parameter

€
ΔPinter = some amount of inter-die variation for this one particular die for this

parameter

{This value is the same across the entire die; hence, it does not cause

clock skew, and it is ignored here.}

ΔPspatial = some amount of intra-die variation which is a function of location on

the die (x,y) for this parameter

{This spatial variation is modeled as a cone and inverse cone function

with six different centers each -- totaling twelve cases in one

quadrant.}

ΔPrandom = some amount of random variation for each device on this die for

this parameter

{This random variation is modeled as a zero mean random variable.}

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5.5.3 SEC-only Improvements

To confirm the SEC clock performance improvements reported Chapter 3, a full-chip

SEC implementation is compared to a TC implementation in Table 5-3. As previously

mentioned, the simulations used a fundamentally different PVT variation model than the one

used in the preceding chapters, so this data represents a new, independent confirmation of

the superior timing performance of SEC over TC. As the data shows, for every spatial

variation pattern, SEC reduces full-chip skew by ~20% versus TC -- the same value as the

preceding results. An illustration of the TC to SEC improvements is shown later in the

clock skew surface plot of Figure 5.16(a) to (b).

Table 5-3 : Overall clock skew results for SEC versus TC

full-chip skew (ps)

PVT Spatial
(mean of 35 Monte-Carlo runs each)
Variation Pattern
TC SEC
A 70.1 54.3
Ai 66.3 50.9
B 54.5 42.3
Bi 52.7 40.9
C 73.4 57.0
Ci 71.7 55.0
D 76.3 59.9
Di 73.3 57.4
E 74.1 58.6
Ei 72.6 57.2
F 34.1 27.5
Fi 33.0 26.6
Average Improvement - 22%

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 The remainder of these simulation results will be comparing the new QRT method

(single level and multi-level) with no QRT. Since both QRT systems utilize SEC buffers,

the upcoming data table will compare the QRT methods to the untuned SEC method -- not

the TC method.

5.5.4 SEC + QRT-2 Improvements

In order to demonstrate the locking operation of QRT in action, transient simulation

graphs of one single HSPICE M.C. simulation run are provided in Figure 5.15. In Figure

5.15(a), a close-up view of the critical timing edge of the eight leaf clocks is being compared

with the four UDDs of this system (refer to Figure 5.12) before the tuning has begun.

Timing variations (or clock skew) of greater than 50ps can be seen in this top graph. The

next four graphs, Figure 5.15(b) to (e), are individual plots of the UP/DOWN signals and the

TB3-TB1 thermometer bits for each of the four quadrants (LT, LB, RB, and RT,

respectively). The important data from these four graphs have been reproduced in Table 5-4

for convenience. Finally, the bottom graph, Figure 5.15(f), is another close-up view of the

same eight clock leaf edges after the tuning has locked. The edge variation (or clock skew)

has been reduced to less than 20ps in about 10 clock cycles (~30ns-35ns) with the single

level QRT technique.

The specific operation of QRT’s tuning process can be understood by stepping

through the data of Table 5-4 (taken directly from the four middle graphs of Figure 5.15).

There are four rows, one for each of the four quadrants, and five columns of data taken at

significant time points of the transient simulation. Each cell contains TB’s bit state (e.g.

001) and UDD’s control signal (UP, DN, or neither = lock) at the chosen simulation times.

Any changes to the bit states are highlighted in bold.

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 At startup (2ns column), all TBs’ bits are at 001; two quadrants need to be tuned

down (LT and RT), and two quadrants up (LB and RB). By 10ns, LB quadrant has tuned up

to 011, and its measured clocks are within UDD’s thresholds, so it is locked. RB quadrant

has also tuned up to 011, but it is still not in the lock region. RT quadrant is not yet able to

tune down, but since its UDD is controlled by RB/RT relative skew, and since RB has just

tuned up, RT quadrant is now in the lock region.

130
Figure 5.15 : Transient simulation waveforms of QRT-2 operation

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 Table 5-4 : Tunable buffer bits state and UP/DN signal over locking time

chip UDD output transient simulation time

quadrant TB setting 2ns 10ns 20ns 32ns 35ns
UP/DN DN DN DN DN lock
LT
bits 001 001 000 000 000
UP/DN UP lock lock lock lock
LB
bits 001 011 011 011 011
UP/DN UP UP lock lock lock
RB
bits 001 011 111 111 111
UP/DN DN lock UP lock lock
RT
bits 001 001 001 011 011
* data taken from graphs of Figure 5.15

At 20ns, LT quadrant has tuned down to 000, but it is still not enough to lock, so it

would like to tune down further; unfortunately, it has run out of its downward tuning range,

but nevertheless QRT will continue to operate properly. LB remains locked as before. RB

has tuned up to 111, and it is now locked too; and because RB has tuned up, RT’s UDD has

come out of lock, and now wants to tune up (following the RB move).

By 32ns RT has tuned up to 011 and it is now locked; and by RT tuning up, LT’s

UDD (which is controlled by the RT/LT relative skew) has now reached lock. Therefore, at

35ns (just over 10 clock cycles) all four quadrants are locked: LT at its maximum delay

setting (000), RB at its minimum delay (111), and LB and RT at middle delays (011), and

they all will remain locked indefinitely.

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 Table 5-5 : Overall clock skew results for QRT

Clock Skew Results for Single & Multi-level QRT

no tuning full-chip skew
PVT Spatial full-chip average % improvement
Variation Pattern skew (ps) QRT-2 QRT-2&3
A 54.3 54% 59%
Ai 50.9 52% 60%
B 42.3 42% 56%
Bi 40.9 41% 56%
C 57.0 52% 57%
Ci 55.0 53% 49%
D 59.9 56% 63%
Di 57.4 55% 65%
E 58.6 55% 64%
Ei 57.2 56% 62%
F 27.5 0.5% 40%
Fi 26.6 -2.6% 40%
Average Improvement - 43% 56%

Full-chip SEC clock skew results for single QRT at clock level-2 are provided in

Table 5-5 column QRT-2. As previously described, six spatial variation patterns (A through

F) along with their inverses (denoted with an “i” suffix) were chosen for the HSPICE

simulations, totaling 12 rows of data in the table. For each pattern, 35 Monte Carlo transient

simulations were run until steady-state was reached – a total of 420 complete simulation

runs. For each simulation run, the full-chip skew is calculated from the clock arrival times

of all 64 leaf clocks.

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 In every simulation run (excluding the F and Fi patterns which will be explained

shortly) the full-chip skew has been dramatically reduced using a single-level QRT. The

average percent improvement versus the untuned (no QRT) network is listed in column

QRT-2 of the table. (The QRT-2&3 column will be discussed later with multi-level QRT

simulations.) Even including the poor F and Fi results, the total average improvement for

QRT-2 over all chosen PVT variations is shown at the bottom of the table to be 43%.

For spatial patterns A through Ei, the QRT-2 technique reduces the full-chip skew by

more than 50%. However, for the F and Fi patterns – both located at the exact center of the

H-tree as shown in Figure 5.14(f), the spatial variation is symmetrically distributed across all

four quadrants leading to minimal skew at the leaves located in the outermost ring of the

clock tree. So, the chosen UDD placement with QRT-2 (shown in Figure 5.12) measures

the low skew between the tuning zones, and thus no improvement is realized. However,

there is intra-quadrant skew between internal leaves of the clock tree that goes undetected.

This intra-quadrant skew is calculated using the same technique described in Section 1.2, but

only considers the 16 clock leaves within each quadrant of the chip. As described next,

multi-level QRT will help to address this symmetrical problem and significantly improve

these clock skew results.

5.5.5 SEC + QRT-2&3 Improvements

As explained previously, four more QRT systems can be added at clock level-3 to

create a multi-level QRT implementation with tuning at both levels 2 and 3, referred to here

as QRT-2&3. In order to observe the behavior of single-level and multi-level QRT, surface

plots of the clock leaf delays for all four clock tree designs are displayed in Figure 5.16.

Figure 5.16(a) is from TC clock buffers without QRT (no tuning), Figure 5.16(b) is from

134
SEC clock buffers without QRT (no tuning), Figure 5.16(c) is from SEC single-level QRT at

clock level-2, and Figure 5.16(d) is SEC multi-level QRT at clock level-2 and 3. The z-axis

for each plot is the relative clock delay measured at the 64 clock leaves, and the x-y axes

indicate the H-tree clock leaves’ 64 spatial locations on the square chip.

The full-chip skew, as calculated from all 64 clock leaves and defined in Section

5.5.1, is explicitly labeled as ‘skew’ on each plot. Additionally, the intra-quadrant skew,

calculated from only the 16 clock leaves within each quadrant, is also labeled on each of the

four quadrants for each surface plot. (Note that these clock delay surface plots are for the

exact same simulation conditions as the data of Figure 5.15 and Table 5-4.) As covered

previously, the improvement from TC to SEC is evident in the ~20% reduction in skews

from plots Figure 5.16(a) and (b).

In comparing the active tuning performance of QRT, only the SEC plots of Figure

5.16(b), (c) and (d) will be considered, since they all use the same SEC clock buffers. As

the baseline (no tuning) plot of Figure 5.16(b) shows, the PVT variation of this particular

simulation produces 64.5ps of clock skew for a traditional H-tree distribution network. The

spatial variation of this pattern (pattern C of Figure 5.14(c), in this case) is noticeably

evident in the small delays for the LT quadrant, rising to the large delays of the RB

quadrant.

135
 Figure 5.16 : Surface plots of H-tree leaf clocks for four clock designs

Once QRT-2 is implemented, the four clock zones (LT, LB, RB, and RT) will

commence to autonomously tune themselves to an equal delay, and the full-chip skew will

ultimately be reduced to 19.5ps as shown in the plot of Figure 5.16(c). For this case, as

previously shown in Table 5-4, after tuning to lock LT zone increased itself to maximum

delay (000), RB zone decreased itself to minimum delay (111), while LB and RT remained

in the middle (011). Since these TBs have a step-size of approximately 16ps, LT has gone

up by ~16ps, LB and RT have gone down by ~16ps, and RB has gone down by ~32ps,

resulting in an overall relative change of ~48ps, and a flattening of the full-chip clock delays

is very evident in the surface plots from Figure 5.16(b) to (c).

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 Finally, when the QRT-2&3 (multi-level) is implemented, the sub-skew

improvements within each quadrant can be seen in the plot Figure 5.16(d). Unfortunately,

LT sub-skew does increase slightly from 5ps to 9ps (still within the QRT-3 threshold design

window), but the remaining three quadrants all show significant improvements (12ps down

to 7ps, 11ps and 13ps both down to 4ps). Furthermore, the flattening of each of these

quadrants has aided with the flattening of the full chip, as evident in the reduction of full-

chip skew from 19.5ps for QRT-2 in Figure 5.16(c) down to 14.7ps for QRT-2&3 in Figure

5.16(d).

Now that the detailed operations of the single-level and multi-level QRT systems

have been presented, the final HSPICE simulation data can be analyzed. The same twelve

spatial patterns described earlier were simulated over the same 35 HSPICE Monte Carlo

transient runs to evaluate the associated clock skew improvements of this multi-level

implementation (QRT-2&3) in comparison to the previous two designs (no tuning and QRT-

2). Based on the results, the primary improvement realized by adding four QRT-3 systems

at the quadrant level is a reduction in the sub-skew or intra-quadrant clock skews.

137
 Table 5-6 : Sub-quadrant skew results for QRT

Sub-Quadrant Skew Results for Single & Multi-level QRT

no tuning max quadrant skew

PVT Spatial max quadrant average % improvement
Variation Pattern skew (ps) QRT-2 QRT-2&3
A 14.4 -5% 35%
Ai 13.9 -1% 30%
B 15.8 -1% 36%
Bi 16.2 3% 42%
C 16.1 -5% 43%
Ci 15.1 -5% 42%
D 17.1 -3% 42%
Di 16.8 1% 45%
E 18.6 -5% 46%
Ei 17.4 -2% 45%
F 23.6 1% 55%
Fi 22.4 1% 51%
Average Improvement - -1.8% 43%

Since all four quadrants are being treated as equally important in this hypothetical

example, only the maximum (or worst case) of the four quadrant sub-skews will be

compared. Table 5-6 shows these data for all three SEC designs over the twelve spatial

variation patterns. Since QRT-2 implementation does not operate within the quadrants

themselves, no improvement would be expected over the baseline (no tuning) technique, and

accordingly the table shows a minimal -1.8% average change. However, with the addition

of the QRT-3 within each quadrant, the sub-skews are now dramatically improved, as shown

by the 43% total average at the bottom of column QRT-2&3. Therefore, smaller skews and

138
tighter control of the clock edges can be obtained within each quadrant by the addition of

QRT-3 (not possible with QRT-2 alone).

However, as stated at the outset, the purpose of this example is to reduce full-chip

clock skew across the entire chip, not just intra-quadrant clock skew. As the data of Table

5-5 shows, the addition of QRT-3 helps to reduce full-chip skew as well. The previous 43%

improvement in clock skew from QRT-2 has improved to 56% with the addition of the

multi-level QRT-2&3. The explanation for this improvement was briefly addressed in the

discussion of the two surface plots of Figure 5.16(c) and Figure 5.16(d). When the four

QRT-3 systems are allowed to flatten out the skew inside of each of the four quadrants, then

the single QRT-2 system will have a much better chance of flattening out the entire chip’s

clock delays.

Finally, it was previously pointed out that QRT-2 system alone cannot improve the F

and Fi patterns due to their symmetrical pattern over the full chip, but as the data of Table

5-5 shows, the QRT-2&3 multi-level system can significantly improve the full-chip clock

skew because that same symmetrical pattern effect is not seen at the individual quadrant

level (QRT-3 level).

5.6 QRT Summary and Limitations

Controlling clock skew is vital to the functionality of synchronous circuit designs.

As intra-die variations continue to increase, some form of post-silicon clock adjustability

may become valuable for tuning away unwanted clock skew. However, performing full-

chip clock tuning via ATE test or using several complex system-level controllers may prove

too expensive for typical ASIC designs. Therefore, the autonomous clock tuning

architecture of QRT has been developed to allow clock zones to essentially tune themselves.

139
 This chapter first described the state of the art of multiple zone tuning systems which

has progressed from the cyclic architecture to the acyclic architecture to avoid the stability

problems inherent in cyclic designs, namely mode-lock, mode-lock oscillation, and cyclic-

feedback oscillation. Then, it proposed a return to a cyclic architecture to avoid the out of

range problem and its need for a global controller inherent with acyclic designs. This new

cyclic architecture has been called ring tuning.

Ring tuning is a novel technique for reducing clock skew in typical synchronous

circuits by linking together multiple deskew loops that are distributed across the entire chip.

Implementing ring tuning for post-silicon, active clock deskewing allows the tunable clock

zones of a chip to autonomously adjust their clock delays during normal circuit operation

and to stably lock-in below a designer chosen skew threshold. A specific implementation,

called QRT, was presented using a total of four deskew tuning loops. The problems of

mode-lock, mode-lock oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation have been addressed with

the design of the UDD, and the problem of out of range has been addressed with the design

of the TB and TCG. This QRT system has been shown to operate with stability without the

need for any global controller, making it easier to implement than previous techniques.

Then, a hierarchically implementation of multi-level QRT helped to overcome the linear

growth of skew bound for larger numbers of tuning zones. This approach, called QRT-2&3,

was shown to reduce (on average) intra-quadrant clock skew by 43% and full-chip clock

skew by 56%.

The stability of this ring tuning technique is guaranteed by adjusting TBs only one

step at a time and by widening UDD’s threshold in order to provide at least one or more

valid locking state for all four DLLs. Therefore, the step-size of TB is the true limiting

140
parameter in the resolution of ring tuning systems – provided of course that TB has

sufficient tuning range to compensate for all expected skews. Even the very simple 3-bit (4-

step) TB used in these simulations produced clock skew improvements of more than 50%

using QRT. However, delay elements with higher resolutions have been presented [71],

including a simple modification to this TB resulting in sixteen steps of monotonic tuning

[70][81], and a 128-bit, 1ps-step TB [82]. Using such a high resolution TB here, would

allow for the same tuning range to be covered with a smaller step size; consequently,

increasing the resolution of QRT greatly.

Also, just like any DLL, this QRT system must run for several clock cycles to lock.

During this locking time, the clock signals will be periodically adjusted until the skew

thresholds are met (as demonstrated in Figure 5.15 and Table 5-4). Of the 420 single-level

and 420 multi-level QRT PVT varying HSPICE simulations performed here, all of them

ultimately stabilized. So, the single and multi-level QRT techniques have been

demonstrated to stabilize and lock consistently and quickly over PVT variations.

141
Chapter 6 : Summary, Conclusions, and Future Work

Synchronous circuits comprised of flip-flops (FF) driven by a clock are still the

preferred choice in most chips today, and therefore a reliable clock signal remains a critical

design focus. However, the on-chip PVT (process-voltage-temperature) variations

unquestionably impact the clock buffers and clock wires that comprise the clock distribution

network. While designers try to maintain balance in the clock branches by adhering to well-

established layout strategies, the PVT variations inherently unbalance the clock distribution

network and subsequently result in excessive clock skew and jitter. As PVT variations are

expect to increase in future process technologies, so too will the clock skew and jitter

increase. Therefore, new techniques to control clock skew are the focus in this dissertation.

In addition, improvements to clock jitter and clock latency are also addressed here.

Two options exist to reduce clock skew: a general approach that improves the clock

distribution network on all chips via design and/or layout techniques prior to mask

generation, called pre-silicon methods, and a chip-specific tailored approach that measures

clock skew during chip operation and correspondingly tunes the clock signal arrival time to

cancel the skew out, called post-silicon methods.

The pre-silicon techniques are relatively cheaper and easier than the post-silicon

techniques, so they are always the first-line of defense in terms of skew reduction.

However, as PVT variations continue to grow with shrinking process technologies, the

limits of pre-silicon techniques are being reached. Furthermore, many of the PVT variations

are experienced by the circuit only during its operation, so they are completely unpredictable

in a pre-silicon context. Therefore, post-silicon techniques are becoming more prevalent for

skew compensation. Novel techniques for both pre-silicon skew reduction and post-silicon

142
skew compensation have been proposed in this research. In the sections below, we review

the contributions, describe certain limitations and propose future work for each category.

6.1 Pre-silicon Skew Reduction

6.1.1 Summary of Contributions

The first key contribution was to design a new low-skew clocking scheme that is a

drop-in replacement for the traditional clocking (TC) systems. It was based on the

realization that, of the four segments that comprise a typical clock period (rising-edge, high-

level, falling-edge, and low-level), only one segment (e.g., the rising-edge for a single-edge

triggered FF systems) is truly critical to the timing performance of a synchronous system.

Therefore, that rising-edge has been dubbed the critical clock edge, and a novel design

technique, called Single-Edge Clocking (SEC), was proposed to improve that critical-edge

segment while allowing the other three non-critical segments to gracefully degrade, but not

fail.

The goal of the SEC technique is to create a sharp critical edge and push it as quickly

as possible through the clock distribution network. This task requires the use of asymmetric

clock buffers, called INVr and INVf, that create sharp rising-edge and falling-edge signals,

respectively, by choosing suitable β values for each type of inverter. Consequently, the two

buffers are alternated throughout the clock distribution network as the signal inverts through

each stage. The equations for selecting the appropriate inverters' β’s for a given clock

distribution network and for sizing the SEC buffers to directly replace the TC buffers have

been derived.

143
 The maximum clock timing performance gain from this SEC technique was obtained

by designing the full-chip clock distribution network completely using these alternating

INVr and INVf buffers. Simulation results on a typical clock H-tree have demonstrated

timing improvements in clock latency, skew, and jitter of more than 20% for SEC over a

traditional clock buffer network, without any significant increase in power or area.

Furthermore, a single buffer replacement option has been proposed which allows for fine

adjustments in clock path timing by dropping in an SEC buffer in place of a TC buffer (or a

more aggressive SEC buffer in place of a less aggressive one) to either speed-up or slow-

down one clock path with respect to the others.

6.1.2 Limitations

The drawback for improving the critical clock edge in a full-chip SEC design is not a

1-to-1 tradeoff; therefore some other concessions and modifications must be made. In

particular, the SEC system requires a clock pulse to initially drive the network. That is, the

clock signal should first be reduced from a fifty percent duty cycle square wave to a

minimum-sized clock pulse in order to allow for clock pulse growth during the clock signal

propagation from root to leaf. Generating such a clock pulse from the clock source PLL is a

relatively simple design modification with no real sacrifice in circuit operation.

Furthermore, the clock frequency of the SEC system would preferably be less than

the process technology maximum to allow for additional clock period tradeoffs. In the

example described in this dissertation, the clock for a 90nm technology is chosen to be

250MHz -- much less than the GHz range maximum frequency possible. Nevertheless, less-

than-maximum clocks are quite typical in ASIC designs, so SEC should not be greatly

limited by this frequency requirement. However, since it is only the pulse width growth

144
problem of SEC (detailed in Section 3.1.1) which limits its maximum frequency, further

research into techniques to fix this problem would enable SEC to reach its full potential.

The non-critical edge, or neglected edge, of the SEC buffers creates a couple of

additional design concerns. First, the slow transitioning of that edge allows for simultaneous

conduction of both the PMOS and NMOS transistors, thereby creating short-circuit current.

Second, the resulting shift in the voltage transfer curves will reduce noise margin of these

inverters in series. Neither of these two concerns is significant in nature, but they should

both be monitored closely during the design and layout phases.

Finally, the slow transition of the neglected edge may create some additional timing

or short-circuit considerations when driving the FFs at the leaves of the clock branches.

Therefore, the clock pulse should be “cleaned-up” by terminating the clock branch with a

traditional, symmetric buffer prior to the FFs. This terminal buffer, called INVt, was used in

these research simulations; it sufficiently improved the neglected clock edge without

significantly impacting the performance gains.

6.1.3 Proposed Future Work

Individual SEC buffers for fine clock adjustments: The concept of using

individual SEC buffers for skew reduction from both positive and negative delay

adjustments on critical clock paths has been proposed. However, further research to

quantify possible gains (as well as potential losses) on industrial benchmark circuits and to

incorporate SEC within existing commercial CAD tools and flows would be valuable

follow-up work.

Maximum full-chip SEC contributions: The SEC systems and equations

presented here have been kept conservative in order to provide proof-of-concept results and

145
reasonable improvement levels. Even as clock speeds approach maximum allowable

frequency of a given process technology, SEC should still provide some timing performance

improvements, with minimal area and power costs, although the true limits of the SEC

technique need to be explored further. Most interesting would be to precisely determine the

maximum amount of SEC asymmetry allowable over various clock frequencies before the

neglected clock edge begins to interfere with the critical clock edge. This research could

include new techniques to limit or correct for the pulse width growth problem due to the

neglected edge of the clock signal in SEC.

SEC for single-edge signaling: The usage of SEC buffers to deliver two clock

signals to a centrally-located up/down detectors in the QRT research (summarized in the

next section) is more of a low-skew signaling technique, not just a clocking technique.

Therefore, these alternating SEC buffers may have uses in delivering data or signals faster

and sharper than traditional buffers in certain applications, which should be explored.

6.2 Post-silicon Skew Compensation

6.2.1 Summary of Contributions

The main contribution in this area was to develop and implement a framework for

post-silicon clock tuning to reduce skew in the presence of on-chip PVT variations.

Previous cyclic methods of multiple clock zone tuning had stability problems (e.g., mode-

lock, mode-lock oscillation, and cyclic-feedback oscillation), and acyclic methods had an

out of range problem that requires a complex controller. The novel cyclic method presented

here, called ring tuning, has been designed to overcome those stability and out of range

146
problems, without the controller. Furthermore, its hierarchical implementation has been

presented to reduce the skew bound growth problem of numerous tuning zones.

The first step in creating this autonomous de-skewing system was to design an

adjustable, or tunable, clock buffer (TB) capable of handling the distinctive clock signal of

the SEC system. The non-critical, or neglected, clock edge of the SEC method is already

degraded by the asymmetric SEC inverters, so any additional delay on that edge could

eventually lead to an invalid clock signal. Therefore, a single-sided starved inverter buffer,

called tsi-INVf, was created with 3-bits of linear delay tuning on the falling edge only -- the

rising edge is unaffected. Four of these buffers were positioned across the H-tree of a

typical chip creating four independent clock-tuning zones.

Next, a novel linking of those four zones into a one-directional ring configuration

was implemented via a newly-designed phase detector called an Up/Down Detector (UDD).

The control signals from these UDDs were designed to be extremely simple in order to

minimize their area and power but, perhaps more importantly, to guarantee tuning stability.

Each UDD controls a TB to form four DLL-like deskew loops interlinked in a

counterclockwise ring to allow for autonomous tuning of each clock zone with its neighbor.

This complete scheme is called ring tuning, with a specific implementation of four tuning

zones called, Quad Ring Tuning (QRT).

Furthermore, this QRT architecture was duplicated four times at a higher clock

buffer level to create a multi-level implementation. Four QRT systems can operate at clock

level-3 to keep 16 clock zones synchronized, while at the same time one QRT system

operates at clock level-2 to keep those other four QRT systems synchronized. The

concurrent tuning of all five QRT systems (composed of 20 DLL-like tuning loops) is kept

147
stable by the slow and simple, one-step-at-a-time, unidirectional tuning algorithm. A very

basic implementation of this multi-level QRT system has been shown to reduce full-chip

clock skew by more than 50% versus an H-tree without post-silicon tuning.

6.2.2 Limitations

The resolution of the ring tuning system is limited by the tuning range and step-size

of the TBs. The simple, single-sided starved inverter design used for these TBs is limited in

their number of tuning steps (4-steps used here), so a better TB design should be pursued.

Several alternative designs that could be compatible with the SEC clock signals have been

published, so finding a suitable 128-step (or more) TB should not be a problem.

The simplistic, one-step-at-a-time, unidirectional tuning algorithm proposed here for

tuning stability has one requirement for achieving 'lock'. The range of the TBs must be 1/2

max-skew22 in the positive direction and 1/2 max-skew in the negative direction. Therefore,

it is important that the tunable buffers initially startup at the middle tuning-step, which is

satisfied by the TCG design used here. This locking range requirement is only slightly more

stringent (by 1/2 step-size) than the ideal case, so it does not significantly impact the QRT

performance.

Also, due to its simplistic operation, this algorithm tunes within the designed

threshold but does not find the optimal tuning bit settings; therefore, it is expected that the

skew budgets will be met, but not minimized. For instance, if the skew budget were 20 ps, it

could be expected that all devices tune to less than 20 ps of skew, but that very many of

those devices are within a range of 11 ps to 19 ps; perhaps a smarter tuning algorithm could

possibly reduce many of those devices down into the 5 ps to 10 ps range. However, the goal

22
Max-skew is defined as the maximum difference in clock arrival times across all the clock tuning zones.

148
of this QRT algorithm was to meet the skew targets without global control, so this sacrifice

in 'achievable' final skew is the tradeoff that was exercised here.

The continuous tuning of all the clock zones allows for possible concurrent

adjustments of the reference clock and tuned clock, which could result in tuning oscillation.

Therefore, the UDD threshold of this simple QRT system must be doubled to 1.0ss23, instead

of the theoretical minimum of 0.5ss. Adding a very simple control method of stepping

through the four adjustments one at a time (such as the spinning wheel algorithm) could

eliminate this 2X penalty, but its implementation is left for further study.

Lastly, the maximum final skew due to clock zone separation of this QRT system has

been given as twice the UDD threshold. A stable condition could potentially exist at three

times the UDD threshold if one tuning zone has prematurely reached its tuning limit, but

that state should never be arrived at unless some error exists in the tuning process, so it was

not considered in the analysis.

6.2.3 Proposed Future Work

Investigate better tunable buffers: The resolution of the QRT de-skewing is

limited by the range and step-size of the TBs. Better TBs are available and should be

investigated to improve the results.

Proper ranges and step sizes for multi-level RT: The range and step-size for both

levels of the multi-level QRT system used here were arrived at empirically. Statistics and

circuit theory should be used to derive equations to quantify the proper tuning range and

tuning step-sizes when using multi-level RT.

23
From Chapter 5, ss is the step-size of the tunable buffers; defined as the temporal distance between any two adjacent tuning settings.

149
 Improve the tuning algorithm: Another useful direction would be to explore better

(but still simple) control of clock zone tuning adjustments in order to eliminate the 2X

penalty mentioned above. An algorithm such as the spinning wheel algorithm24 should

allow for stable locking without the 2X penalty. It also would be interesting to explore

methods to optimize the skew compensation. Specifically, do not just settle for locking the

tuning once arriving below the skew budget, but rather seek the optimal value.

Carry-out formal stability analysis: In this research the stability analysis, both of

the deskew loop and of the ring tuning, has been analyzed in a general, pragmatic fashion,

and the stability verification has been provided through experimental results. More formal

methods of stability analysis should be conducted to theoretically prove the design criteria

required for a stable single-level and multi-level ring tuning system.

Other clock networks and industrial designs: The results were obtained purely

through simulation using HSPICE on an H-tree. Other architectures could be used to

validate claims that it is suitable for many types of clock design for the pre- and post-silicon

techniques. Furthermore, various control algorithms that enable deskewing one-time only

during start-up (static version) or always during normal circuit operation (dynamic version)

or some combination of the two (an intelligent gated-tuning version) could be developed. It

would also be useful to carry out a theoretical analysis to prove the stability of the multi-ring

scheme in static and dynamic operation to support the experimental findings.

In order to truly demonstrate its feasibility and substantiate the improvements, the

approach should be applied to an existing ASIC industrial design. New techniques typically

gain widespread appeal if they are shown to work in silicon on a real design.

24
A spinning wheel algorithm could measure and adjust one clock zone, then move around the wheel to measure and adjust the next
clock zone, and so on one-step-at-a-time, all the way around the ring until all boundaries are 'locked' below the skew threshold. (Note that
the QRT system used here concurrently measures and adjusts all of the clock zones, necessitating the 2X threshold increase for stability.)

150
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