VOL. 15, NO. 14, JULY 2020 ISSN 1819-6608
ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
© 2006-2020 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.
www.arpnjournals.com
1552
DEVELOPMENT OF OPTIMIZED VOLTAGE LEVEL SHIFTER FOR
NANOSCALE APPLICATIONS
Srinivasulu Gundala
1
, Kommu Siddhartha Mavovarakumar
2
, Kona Naga Nandini
3
, Sravani Gantala
4
,
Javisetty Ravi Sankar Varma
5
and Chakrala Navya
6
1,3,4,5,6
Department of ECE, Lakireddy Bali Reddy College of Engineering (Autonomous), Mylavaram, Krishna District, India
2
Department of CSE, Lakireddy Bali Reddy College of Engineering (Autonomous), Mylavaram, Krishna District, India
E-Mail: srinivasulugundala46@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Multi voltage clustered systems are the basic and vital power decrease techniques, these approaches employs
Level shifters to interconnect “Multiple voltage domains” to reduce power in core/module level. The Level Shifter may
considered as area, power and delay overheads when its own power, delays are high. We proposed a circuit technique with
broad shifting range for Nanoscale applications. In this brief, for minimization of current contention to attain both efficient
and robust level shifting, we introduced new LS with series of Diode current limiters, which minimizes the dynamic power
and propagation delay. Implementation of the LS in 130nm technology makes the proposed LS in accomplishing both
efficient and robust level shifting from deep sub-threshold voltage 0.15V to supply voltage 1.25V. The developed LS have
attained an average propagation delay of 6.20ns, Energy efficiency of 26.5fJ.
.
Keywords: level shifter, power, delay, near-threshold, current limiter.
1. INTRODUCTION
The uses of portable/handheld electronic gadgets
like cellular phones, multimedia cameras, and pace makers
are increasing rapidly day by day, and power consumption
has to be reduced at system level to attain more user
satisfaction. The ultimate solution is Multi VDD systems
and System-on-Chip (SoCs) [1-3]. These are becoming
more popular and common in many practical applications.
Such a multi VDD and SoCs are needed to be operated
with different supply voltages. For such compute theory,
energy and power consumptions are crucial design
elements. Both the power and Delay of a digital IC
depends on its supply voltage.
Figure-1. DCVS level shifter.
Level Shifter (LS) is necessary and widely placed
among various voltage designs for multiple supply voltage
domains. Considering this, to operate in a broad dynamic
range the LSs are chosen, at which the near-threshold
input scenarios are contained in it. Majorly, the previous
LS design which is based on the “Differential Cascade
Voltage Switch (DCVS)” LS design in Figure-1 is difficult
for shifting from near-threshold to super- threshold,
because of the prior current contention caused which is
due to the limited drivability of the pull down devices
operated in the near threshold region. Generally, when the
input signal scales below threshold voltage, the conversion
failure is caused due to the contention.
2. REVIEW ON EXISTING LEVEL SHIFTERS
By utilizing intermediate power rails in
multistage LS circuit design [4] which reduces the
contention in every stage. In general, generation of the
multiple voltage supplies through regulators is expensive
in many aspects. Thus the area and power overheads are
overpowering due to boosting of pull down devices
channel width, which is beneficial for good performance
and efficient level conversion operation by using well
desired appropriate design techniques [5].
The LSs in [6-12] useful in wide range shifting
application, and having a provision for bidirectional level
shifting, balancing transition time delays, and it poses
DCVSL kind of circuit topology utilizes dual power
supplies. Being dual power supplies routing congestion
may occurs at physical design. The DCVS LS acts as a
ratioed circuits and the contention among pull-up and pull-
down networks turn out to be severe when input voltage
are in the below sub threshold levels, which makes the
transistor sizing impractical to obtain a proper level
shifting [13]. To address this problem, several
improvements have been proposed in [13-17]. The LSs in
[13-17] are designed and optimized in 130nm technologies
to meet the contention issues, can be considered as state of
art circuits to convert deep sub threshold to I/O levels.
In this brief, for minimization of current
contention to attain both efficient and robust level shifting,
we introduced new LS with NMOS current limiter which
minimizes the dynamic power and propagation delay.
Implementation of the LS in 130nm technology makes the