Crosstalk Alleviation for Dynamic PLAs

—The dynamic programmable logic array (PLA) style has become popular in designing high-performance microprocessors because of its high speed and predictable routing delay. However, like all other dynamic circuits, dynamic PLAs have suffered from the crosstalk noise problem. The main reason is that the regularity of the PLA design style causes a product line parallel to the adjacent product lines on the same layer for a long distance so that the crosstalk noise can be significant. Most previous works attempt to prevent the crosstalk noise by adding additional devices or spacing between wires. However, the prevention may degrade performance and increase area/power. In this paper, the authors propose two techniques to alleviate crosstalk noise for dynamic PLAs. The first technique makes use of the fact that depending on the ordering of product lines, some crosstalk does not cause errors in outputs. A proper ordering can greatly reduce the number of product lines affected by crosstalk no...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: DATE
• Authors: Tzyy-Kuen Tien, Tong-Kai Tsai, Shih-Chieh Chang
• Keywords: Crosstalk Noise, Crosstalk Noise Problem, DATE 2002, Hardware, Product Lines