Abstract:
An integrated circuit comprises an embedded switchable power ring for supplying power to circuit modules ( 15.1, . . . , 15.5 ) arranged within the switchable power ring ( 13 ). The switchable power ring ( 13 ) comprises a switch control unit ( 20 ) for generating an on/off control signal and multiple switch power units ( 30 ) controlled by the on/off control signal for providing a switched current as power supply for the circuit modules ( 15.1, . . . , 15.5 ). The multiple switch power units ( 30 ) being arranged in a ring shape on the integrated circuit ( 2 ′).

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS  
       [0001]     This application claims priority from European Patent Application No. 04 022 362.0, which was filed on Sep. 20, 2004, and is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.  
       TECHNICAL FIELD  
       [0002]     The invention relates to the design of power-efficient integrated circuits and, more specifically, to an integrated circuit comprising an embedded switchable power supply. Further, the invention relates to a method for designing the layout of an integrated circuit.  
       BACKGROUND  
       [0003]     Power consumption of SoCs (systems-on-chip) has grown to be of crucial importance in the recent years. The current industry trend in portable computing devices demonstrates the demand for increased performance combined with low power/energy consumption. So the quest to optimise system-wide power use and maximise battery life has produced several approaches for intelligently and dynamically adjusting performance and power consumption on a chip.  
         [0004]     One approach is to operate various chip areas with different supply voltages and/or different clock rates in order to reduce power consumption.  
         [0005]     In view of static power consumption reduction, the high leakage current in deep submicron CMOS circuits is becoming a significant contributor to power dissipation as threshold voltage, channel length and gate oxide thickness are reduced. Thus, multiple threshold voltage design approach is required for reducing leakage current. As high threshold voltage (HVT) design shows substantial lower leakage current than regular threshold voltage (RVT) design, leakage power can be saved by this approach. However, to maintain the time advantages of RVT, the usage of RVT for specific components remains a must in chip design.  
         [0006]     More specifically, the leakage currents between RVT and HVT can vary as a function of the technology compared. As an example, in the 0.13 μm technology, leakage current in RVT design is a factor of 18 larger than leakage current in HVT design. Considering 90 nm technology, the factor is 65. As a last example, a factor of 25 is observed when comparing the leakage current in 90 nm technology of RVT design to the leakage current in 0.13 μm technology of HVT design.  
         [0007]     Switching off any unused parts of the integrated circuit is a further possible strategy to achieve a significant reduction of the static power consumption of the device. Powering down some parts of a CMOS circuit has been done externally since now.  FIG. 1  illustrates a typical scheme of a printed circuit board (PCB)  1  supporting a chip  2  and a power control device  3 . The power control device  3  is connected to power supply input pads  4 . 1 ,  4 . 2 ,  4 . 3  of chip  2  via lines PWR 1 , PWR 2 . On-chip power routing is performed by a so called power supply ring  5  running at the chip  2  periphery. The power supply ring  5  is a two wire structure providing VDD and VSS. Embedded modules  6 . 1 ,  6 . 2  of the integrated circuit are connected to the power supply ring  5  by two-wire VDD/VSS-connections  8  extending over the chip  2  under a regular distance. The entire chip  2  or specific parts thereof may be switched off by the power control device  3  if appropriate.  
         [0008]     External power switch control strategy has disadvantages in two regards. From the integrated circuit point of view, extra supply input pads  4 . 1 ,  4 . 2 ,  4 . 3  are needed leading to a bigger chip area. This disadvantage can be very important in case of a pad-limited chip design. From the customer point of view, the PCB  1  becomes more complicated. It may even be the case that extra metal layers are needed. This increases both the board price and the final product price.  
         [0009]     Further, it is known from prior art that memories can be switched off internally with an embedded component often called “romswitch” as shown in  FIG. 2 .  FIG. 2  shows a plurality of embedded memories M 1 , . . . , Mn (n is an integer greater than 1), which are arranged adjacent to one another. Two romswitches  7 . 1 ,  7 . 2  are arranged at both sides of the series of memories M 1 , . . . , Mn. Each romswitch  7 . 1 ,  7 . 2  is fed by the global power wires VDD and VSS. The romswitches  7 . 1 ,  7 . 2  are controlled by a power control signal pwr_cntrl. Depending on the logical state of the power control signal pwr_cntrl, the input wire VDD is connected to an output wire VDD_MEM. VSS and VDD_MEM are routed to the memories M 1 , . . . , Mn as a power supply. Thus, depending on the logical state of the control signal pwr_cntrl, the memories M 1 , . . . , Mn are switched on and off by the on-chip romswitches  7 . 1 ,  7 . 2 .  
         [0010]     This “romswitch strategy” has many disadvantages. The romswitch components must be hard coded in the VHDL (very high speed hardware description language) source code, kept during design flow synthesis and placed manually during the floor-planning. The different shape availabilities for such a romswitch component may also limit the design variability.  
       SUMMARY  
       [0011]     Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide for a cost-effective and design advantageous integrated circuit with switchable circuit blocks. Further, the invention aims to provide for a computer program comprising a cell library for design flow development of integrated circuits, which supports design flow development of an integrated circuit having optimised power supply structure design and reduced power consumption.  
         [0012]     The object of the invention is achieved by an integrated circuit comprising an embedded switchable power ring for supplying power to circuit modules arranged within the switchable power ring, the switchable power ring comprising a switch control unit for generating an on/off control signal, and multiple switch power units controlled by the on/off control signal for providing a switched current as power supply for the circuit modules, the multiple switch power units being arranged in a ring shape on the integrated circuit.  
         [0013]     The switch control unit of the switchable power ring can be an integral part of the ring shape. The embedded switchable power ring may comprise two global power wires and one switched power wire, wherein one of the global power wires and the switched power wire are connected to the circuit modules arranged within the switchable power ring. The two global power wires and the one switched power wire can be established in two metal layers of the integrated circuit. The two metal layers can be metal 2  and metal 3 . The switch control unit and the switch power units can be designed so as to directly abut to one another. A plurality of embedded switchable power rings can be established on the integrated circuit.  
         [0014]     The object can also be achieved by a method for designing the layout of an integrated circuit using a computer program for executing a cell layout designing process and a cell library storing cell data, the method comprising the steps of: 
        registering a first cell representing a switch control unit for generating an on/off control signal by the cell library, and     registering a second cell representing a switch power unit controlled by the on/off control signal for providing a switched current for on-chip power supply, and     placing a plurality of second cells in the shape of a ring on the integrated circuit.        
 
         [0018]     At least some of the second cells can be placed in direct abutment to one another. The first cell can be placed to become integral part of the ring shape.  
         [0019]     According one embodiment, an integrated circuit comprises an embedded switchable power ring for supplying power to circuit modules arranged within the switchable power ring. The switchable power ring comprising a switch control unit for generating an on/off control signal and multiple switch power units controlled by the on/off control signal for providing a switched current as power supply for the circuit modules. The multiple switch power units and preferably also the switch control unit are being arranged in a ring shape on the integrated circuit.  
         [0020]     Thus, the basic concept of the invention is an embedded switchable power ring that can be used to internally switch on/off the power for any desired design part or component (circuit modules) of a chip. This allows to achieve a significant reduction of the static power consumption (related to the leakage current) of the device.  
         [0021]     Further, the invention combines the favourable power distribution performance of an conventional (two wire) power ring with the on-chip power switching facility of the (however modified) “romswitch” strategy (cf.  FIG. 2 ). The idea is to partition a conventional romswitch into its switch control unit and its switch power unit, to provide a multiplicity of switch power units and to arrange these units (multiple switch power units and, optionally, the switch control unit) in a ring shape on the integrated circuit.  
         [0022]     The power ring implementation can be made without any big impact in terms of area and design complexity. Further, the power will be distributed in a regular manner (all sides of the power ring internal circuit modules may be used for power supply input) similar to conventional (two wire) power rings, which are known as one of the best ways to distribute power on a chip. Further, the power part (i.e. the multiple switch power units) of the embedded power ring will be automatically scaled depending on the perimeter of the ring. So, bigger areas within the power ring will have stronger switches to provide enough current to the circuit modules in this internal area.  
         [0023]     Preferably, the embedded switchable power ring comprises two global power wires and one switched power wire, wherein one of the global power wires and the switched power wire are connected to the circuit modules arranged within the switchable power ring. The switchable power wire may either be switched VSS or switched VDD.  
         [0024]     A preferred implementation of the embedded switchable power ring requires that the two global power wires and the one switched power wire are established in two metal layers of the integrated circuit. In this case, it is preferred to use as lower metal layers as possible, preferably metal 2  and metal 3 . Using as lower metal layers as possible improves the routability of the internal connections (i.e. the pin accessibility) to the circuit modules surrounded by the embedded switchable power ring.  
         [0025]     Preferably, the switch power units are designed so as to directly abut to one another. Then, the embedded switchable power ring may be designed without spacer cells or wiring needed between the switch power units.  
         [0026]     Preferably, a plurality of embedded switchable power rings is established on the integrated circuit. The embedded switchable power rings can independently switch on and off the surrounded areas on the chip. Such design allows for a flexible and low-cost power routing management on the chip with optimum power reduction performance.  
         [0027]     Further, the invention relates to a method for designing the layout of an integrated circuit using a computer program for executing a cell layout designing process and a cell library storing cell data. The cell library registers a first cell representing a switch control unit for generating an on/off control signal, and a second cell representing a switch power unit controlled by the on/off control signal for providing a switched current for on-chip power supply. The method comprises the step of placing second cells in the shape of a ring, preferably in direct abutment to one another.  
         [0028]     According to this method, a simple and low-cost design of the embedded switchable power ring is possible. As a further advantage, the embedded switchable power ring structure is similar to a conventional pad ring. Therefore, algorithms already exist to place such components (here: the second cells and optionally the first cell) in a ring shape. Therefore, conventional computer programs used for designing the layout of a semiconductor device may be used (optionally with some modifications) for laying out the embedded switchable power ring using a cell library in which the first and second cells are registered. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0029]     The invention may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:  
         [0030]      FIG. 1  is a diagram illustrating a typical state-of-the-art powering scheme of a printed circuit board with external power control;  
         [0031]      FIG. 2  is a diagram illustrating a state-of-the-art powering scheme for an embedded power switch for memory;  
         [0032]      FIG. 3  is a diagram illustrating a powering scheme according to the invention using an embedded power ring defining one switchable power area on the integrated circuit;  
         [0033]      FIG. 4  is a diagram illustrating the circuitry and arrangement of three sub-blocks of the embedded switchable power ring;  
         [0034]      FIG. 5  is a diagram illustrating an embedded switchable power ring architecture;  
         [0035]      FIG. 6  is a layout of two sub-blocks of the power ring architecture of  FIG. 5 ;  
         [0036]      FIG. 7  is a diagram illustrating an embedded switchable power ring implemented in metal 2  and metal 3  of an integrated circuit;  
         [0037]      FIG. 8  is a schematic block diagram of a computer system adapted for design flow calculation; and  
         [0038]      FIG. 9  is a flowchart executed by the computer system of  FIG. 8 . 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0039]      FIG. 3  shows a floorplan of a chip layout. As usual, series of pads  11  are arranged at the periphery of the chip  2 ′. VSS and VDD wiring  12   a,    12   b  extends over the chip  2 ′ from one side to the other. A switchable power ring  13  having three power/ground wires (i.e. one more than the standard power ring) is provided on the chip  2 ′. VSS wires are denoted by the suffix a and VDD wires are denoted by the suffix b. In addition to VSS wire  13   a  and VDD wire  13   b,  the power ring  13  has a switched VSS wire  14 .  
         [0040]     A hierarchical entity or block is enclosed by the switchable power ring  13 . The hierarchical entity comprises one or more functional modules  15 . 1 ,  15 . 2 ,  15 . 3 ,  15 . 4  electrically connected to VDD wire  13   b  and switched VSS wire  14 . The functional modules  15 . 1 , . . . ,  15 . 4  are embedded on-chip modules of the integrated circuit  2 ′ or SoC design, for instance memories, logic, controllers, processor cores, interfaces, etc. Further, the switchable power ring  13  encloses a logic module  16 . As any component situated within the switchable power ring  13 , the logic module  16  is also powered by VDD wire  13   b  and switched VSS wire  14 .  
         [0041]     An enable signal PWR_CTRL  17  (cf.  FIG. 4 ) is provided for activating/deactivating the embedded switchable power ring  13 . In the activated state, the switched VSS wire  14  is connected to VSS wire  13   a,  in deactivated state, the switched VSS wire  14  is cut-off from VSS wire  13   a.  The enable signal PWR_CTRL  17  has to be generated by some part of the chip where the power is always on, i.e. some part outside the power ring  13 .  
         [0042]     The integrated circuit  2 ′ may comprise further functional modules  18 . 1 ,  18 . 2  and  18 . 3 , which are external to the embedded switchable power ring  13 . These functional modules  18 . 1 ,  18 . 2 ,  18 . 3  are connected to VSS wire  12   a  and VDD wire  12   b.    
         [0043]     It is to be noted that switched wire  14  may also support switched VDD instead of switched VSS as shown in  FIG. 3 . In this case wires  12   a  and  13   a  are VDD wires and wires  12   b  and  13   b  are VSS wires.  
         [0044]      FIG. 4  illustrates two basic building blocks of the embedded switchable power ring  13 , namely the switch control sub-block  20  and the switch power sub-block  30 .  
         [0045]     The switch control sub-block  20  consists of driver  21 , inverter  22 , FETs  23  and an OR-gate with one inverted input  24 . The switch power sub-blocks  30  have a driver  31  and a FET  32 , the gate thereof is controlled by the driver  31  output.  
         [0046]     Depending on the voltage level of a switch power control signal  25  as output by the switch control sub-block  20 , the FET  32  of switch power sub-block  30  is gated or conductive. If FET  32  is gated, the embedded switchable power ring is switched off. Otherwise, in the conductive state, the embedded switchable power ring  13  is switched on.  
         [0047]     The switch control sub-block  20  and one switch power sub-block  30 , in combination, contain the circuitry of a conventional romswitch  7 . 1 ,  7 . 2 . Starting from such conventional romswitch, the idea of the invention is to separate such romswitch in the switch control sub-block  20  and in the switch power sub-block  30 , to provide for a plurality of switch power sub-blocks  30  and to use this plurality of switch power sub-blocks  30  as building blocks of a power ring as depicted in  FIG. 3 . It is to be noted that driver  31  routes the control signal  25  from one switch power sub-block  30  to the next switch power sub-block  30 . Multiple switch power sub-blocks  30  are needed to provide enough current to the components  15 . 1 , . . . ,  15 . 4 ,  16  encircled by the power ring  13 .  
         [0048]      FIG. 5  illustrates an implementation example of the embedded switchable power ring  13 . Identical or similar parts are denoted by the same reference signs as used in the previous figures. From  FIG. 5 , it can be seen that the switch power sub-blocks  30  illustrated as rectangles are arranged in direct abutment to one another without any separation in between. Further, in this example, the one switch control sub-block  20  is integrated in the embedded power ring  13 . In relation to the known concept of romswitches, this means that the sub-blocks  20  and  30  have to be redesigned in a way that makes it possible to abut as many sub-blocks  20 ,  30  as needed, cf.  FIG. 5 . The power ring  13  is then created by abutting these sub-blocks  20 ,  30 ,  30 , . . . ,  30  or  30 ,  30 , . . . ,  30 . The switch control sub-block  20  is controlled by the external enable signal  17  (PWR_CTRL).  
         [0049]     Of course, the design shown in  FIG. 5  is flexible and the invention also covers cases in which one or more switch power sub-blocks  30  are replaced by a triple wire connection.  
         [0050]      FIG. 6  illustrates the layout of the switchable power ring  13  architecture in more detail. There are shown two sub-blocks, either switch control sub-block  20  and switch power sub-block  30  or two switch power sub-blocks  30 . It is apparent from  FIG. 6  that the connectors (pins)  13   a  (VSS),  13   b  (VDD) and  14  (here switched VDD) are aligned to one another and are in direct electrical contact.  
         [0051]      FIG. 7  illustrates the implementation of the embedded switchable power ring  13  in metal 2  and metal 3  of a chip layout. It appears that the ring wiring of the power ring  13  is generated in metal 2  for horizontal wiring and in metal 3  for vertical wiring. Power ring-internal pins are established in metal 3  for pin series orientated in vertical direction and are generated in metal 4  for pin series orientated in horizontal direction. Signal routing into or out of the power ring  13  is performed by exemplary wires  33 ,  34  connected to the internal pins. It is desired to use as lower metal layers as possible for the wiring of the switchable power ring  13  in order to maintain high pin accessibility to the circuit modules  15 . 1 , . . . ,  15 . 5  surrounded by the embedded switchable power ring  13 . This ensures that the power ring  13  blocks only these lower metal layers and that the higher metal layers can be used for routing signals over the power ring  13  by wires  33 ,  34 . Therefore, metal 2  and metal 3  (i.e. the second and third lowest metal layers of the metal layer design of the chip  2 ′) are preferred for implementing the power ring  13 .  
         [0052]     One of the most important advantages of the invention is the fact that powering down of any design part or components of the chip  2 ′ can be implemented internally. This increases the granularity of the components that can be powered down within the integrated circuit. Thus, no extra power pads will be needed and the power control strategy will become easier and faster as there is no need to interface to another chip. The power-on can be done smoothly to avoid any current pick-up and chip voltage drop that could have timing impacts on other working parts of the design.  
         [0053]     A plurality of embedded switched power ring  13  (probably using different supply voltages) may be arranged on one chip  2 ′. In this case, it is preferred that the various enable signals  17  for each ring  13  are generated in a power control unit situated in a chip domain that is always on, usually called standby.  
         [0054]     Computational design flow tools are widely used for designing the layout of semiconductor devices.  FIG. 8  is a schematic block diagram of a computer system adapted for design flow calculations. Briefly, the computer system comprises a processor  40 , an input device  41 , a display  42 , a first memory  43 , a second memory  44  and a third memory  45 . The input device  41 , the display  42  and the memories  43  to  45  are connected to the processor  40 . Program data  43   a  of the computer program for design flow development of integrated circuits is stored in memory  43 . A cell library  44   a  containing technology data of the cells to be used in the design flow development process are stored in memory  44 . Layout data (i.e. processed data)  45   a  calculated by the processor  40  is stored in memory  45 .  
         [0055]     The cell library  44 a may be a conventional state-of-the-art cell library, except that two additional cells are contained: the first additional cell is data defining the switch control sub-block  20  as depicted in  FIG. 4 . The second additional cell is data defining the switch power sub-block  30  also depicted in  FIG. 4 .  
         [0056]     The computer system of  FIG. 8  executes the (simplified) flowchart of  FIG. 9 .  
         [0057]     In a first design step S 1 , the desired functionality of the integrated circuit  2 ′ or SoC is described using a hardware description language, in most cases VHDL. This design level is called RTL (register transfer level). In complex SoC systems, step S 1  comprises the generation of all modules (memories, processor cores, bus and peripheral components, etc.) of the integrated circuit or SoC.  
         [0058]     In step S 2 , system integration and synthesis is done. The cell coordinates and connectivity netlists for top-level integration are extracted and the netlist is synthesized. The netlist describes the logical cells contained in the integrated circuit to be designed and the cell connections.  
         [0059]     Steps S 1  and S 2  are well-known in the state-of-the-art.  
         [0060]     In step S 3 , arranging and wiring (so-called “place and route”) of the cells is done. The pad ring  5  is created and the power nets of the integrated circuit are routed. In this step, the cells switch control  20  and switch power  30  are arranged to establish one or more embedded switchable power rings  13  as illustrated in FIGS.  5  to  7 . Thus, it is not necessary to place spacer cells between switch control cells  20  and switch power cells  30  and/or switch power cells  30  and adjacent switch power cells  30 . The embedded switchable power ring  13  may be placed and routed by using algorithms which already exist to place pad rings in the design. Then, level shifters and isolation clamp cells at domain boundaries as well as the remaining standard cells are placed and routed.  
         [0061]     After completing global routing in step S 3 , timing analysis (step S 4 ) is performed in order to calculate the optimised netlist S 5 . Steps S 4  and S 5  may be performed by any appropriate timing analysis tool known in the state-of-the-art.