Optimization and Modeling of FPGA Circuitry in Advanced Process Technology

• Main Author: Chiasson, Charles
• Other Authors: Betz, Vaughn
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: FPGA; circuit design; advanced process technology; optimization; modeling; transistor sizing; transmission gate FPGA; 0544
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/42733

We develop a new fully-automated transistor sizing tool for FPGAs that features area, delay and wire load modeling enhancements over prior work to improve its accuracy in advanced process nodes. We then use this tool to investigate a number of FPGA circuit design related questions in a 22nm process. We find that building FPGAs out of transmission gates instead of the currently dominant pass-transistors, whose performance and reliability are degrading with technology scaling, yields FPGAs that are 15% larger but are 10-25% faster depending on the allowable level of "gate boosting''. We also show that transmission gate FPGAs with a separate power supply for their gate terminal enable a low-voltage FPGA with 50% less power and good delay. Finally, we show that, at a possible cost in routability, restricting the portion of a routing channel that can be accessed by a logic block input can improve delay by 17%.