Driver pre-emphasis techniques for on-chip global buses

Abstract

By using current-sensing differential buses with driver pre-emphasis techniques, power dissipation is reduced by 26.0%-51.2% and peak current is reduced by 63.8%, compared to conventional repeater insertion techniques, for 10mm long buses in TSMC 0.25/spl mu/m technology. This proposed architecture lowers the worst coupling capacitance to total capacitance ratio to 14.4%. It only requires 7.9% more bus routing area than single-ended designs for a 16-bit bus, and saves all of the repeater placement blockages. To further verify that the driver pre-emphasis techniques can also be applied to voltage-mode single-ended buses, a test chip in TSMC 0.18/spl mu/m technology was fabricated and measured.