A Comparative Analysis of Low Temperature and Room Temperature Circuit Operation

Abstract

Low-temperature (LT) conditions can potentially lead to lower power consumption and enhanced performance in circuit operations by reducing the transistor leakage current, increasing carrier mobility, reducing wear-out, and reducing interconnect resistance. We develop PROCEED-LT, a pathfinding framework to co-optimize devices and circuits over a wide performance range. Our results demonstrate that circuit operations at LT (−196 °C) reduce power compared to room temperature (RT, 85 °C) by $15\times $ to over $23.8\times $ depending on performance level. Alternatively, LT improves performance by $2.4\times $ (high-power, high-performance) $- 7.0\times $ (low-power, low-performance) at the same power point. These gains are further improved in low-activity circuits and when using multivoltage configurations. Meanwhile, we highlight the need for improvement in $V_{\text {th}}$ variation to leverage benefits at cryogenic temperatures.