Active threshold compensation circuit for improved performance in cooled CMOS systems

Abstract

We propose a threshold compensation circuit that actively adjusts transistor threshold voltage in order to enhance static CMOS performance gains through temperature, while maintaining nominal subthreshold leakage current levels. Simultaneous are presented which show that active threshold compensation for a circuit with normal operating temperature of 100/spl deg/C yields a 27% improvement in gate performance when it is cooled to 27/spl deg/C.