FPGA power reduction using configurable dual-Vdd

Abstract

Power optimization is of growing importance for FPGAs in nanometer technologies. Considering dual-Vdd technique, we show that configurable power supply is required to obtain a satisfactory performance and power tradeoff. We design FPGA circuits and logic fabrics using configurable dual-Vdd and develop the corresponding CAD flow to leverage such circuits and logic fabrics. We then carry out a highly quantitative study using area, delay and power models obtained from detailed circuit design and SPICE simulation in 100nm technology. Compared to single-Vdd FPGAs with optimized Vdd level for the same target clock frequency, configurable dual-Vdd FPGAs with full and partial supply programmability for logic blocks reduce logic power by 35.46% and 28.62% respectively and reduce total FPGA power by 14.29% and 9.04% respectively. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first in-depth study on FPGAs with configurable dual-Vdd for power reduction.