An energy-efficient level shifter for low-power applications

Abstract

One effective way to reduce the power consumption of biomedical implantable devices is to employ different supply voltages for different parts of the system depending on the processing speed of each part. This, however, necessitates the use of voltage level converters. This paper presents a power-efficient voltage level-shifting architecture that is capable of converting low levels of input voltages (even subthreshold levels) to high levels of output voltages. In order to reduce the transition time of the output signal and consequently power consumption, the proposed circuit utilizes a diodeconnected transistor to reduce the swing of the critical node. Moreover, the pull-down network is also improved. Post-layout simulation results of the proposed structure in a 0.18-µm CMOS technology show that at the target design of input low supply voltage of 0.4 V and high supply voltage of 1.8 V, the level-shifter has a propagation delay of 31ns, a static power dissipation of 1.16nW, and a power dissipation of 0.68µW for a 1-MHz input signal.

Sub‐threshold level converter with internal supply feedback for multi‐voltage applications

“…As for the hybrid LSs in [16][17][18], they are all capable of handling a sub-threshold signal to a super-threshold voltage, and show a conspicuous reduction in leakage power by combining half-latch and current mirror. Unfortunately, these circuits have a notable degradation in speed performance and energy consumption.…”

“…Various hybrid LSs by combining half-latch with current mirror are shown in [16][17][18]. These LSs all realise a successful voltage conversion from sub-threshold to nominal voltage while achieving an optimal tradeoff between speed performance and power consumption.…”

An Ultra-Low-Voltage Energy-Efficient Dynamic Fully-Regenerative Latch-Based Level-Shifter Circuit with Tunnel-FET & FinFET Devices

“…Level-shifter (LS) circuit is indispensable as it provides a signal interface across voltage domains. Thus, designing an ultra-low input voltage high-speed LS with a wide voltage range has been a great interest in low-power applications [1]- [6].…”

“…There are two types of LS architectures, namely differential cascode voltage switch (DCVS) LS [4]- [6] and conventional current mirror (CM) based LS circuits [1], [2], [7]. The DCVS-based LS architecture is a fully dynamic circuit but it suffers the problem of current contention between the pull-up and pull-down networks, limiting the voltage conversion range [7], [8].…”

Design and Analysis of Low Power Level Shifter in IC Applications

“…Initially low power system performance has been synonymous with circuit speed or processing power. Low power design technique are to be applied throughout the design process from system level to layout level, sequentially refining or describe the abstract specification or model of the design [1]. In battery-powered, battery-less or in energy-harvesting biomedical devices, reduction of power consumption has been a major design goal [2,3].…”