Vector Controlled Delay Cell With Nearly Identical Rise/Fall Time For Processor Clock Application

In the design of modern processor chips, proper clock distribution is a very important aspect which impacts the chip performance. It is the active cell of delay circuits and cells with variable delay that have the major involvement in clock distribution, thereby deciding the time slacks of all functionalities inside the chip. Because they help in proper input to output signal transmission with the adjustment of variable timing delays and monitor the output signal to have equal rise/fall time, which most of the existing delay elements fail to deliver. Therefore in this article, we have proposed an input vector based design of variable delay with balanced rise time and fall time for the output signal. We have also estimated the delay and output voltage in terms of a mathematical model. This new configuration is executed across the commercial platform of Cadence Virtuoso (R) using 90nm technology node while steered by a 1GHz input signal and power supply of 1.1 V. The execution outcome confirms the desired features of our proposed design under typical conditions and even in process corner variations.