Active cooling to reduce leakage power

Details Active cooling to reduce leakage power Active cooling to reduce leakage power

2001-10-31

2004-10-26

Zarneke, David A. (Department: 2829)

Electricity: measuring and testing

Fault detecting in electric circuits and of electric components

Of individual circuit component or element

C324S721000, C324S765010

Reexamination Certificate

active

06809538

ABSTRACT:

FIELD
The present invention relates generally to integrated circuits, and more specifically to the reduction of leakage power in integrated circuits.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Transistors within integrated circuits are becoming smaller. Each new generation of integrated circuits includes an ever increasing number of these smaller transistors. As transistors become smaller, the “leakage current” through the transistors becomes larger.
Leakage current is current that conducts through a transistor even when the transistor is supposed to be off. In most circuit configurations, leakage current is undesirable because it consumes power without producing useful work. Modern integrated circuits are experiencing larger leakage currents as a percentage of total current consumption because of the greater number of transistors, with each transistor having a larger leakage current.
Circuit techniques have been devised in attempts to reduce leakage currents.
FIGS. 1A and 1B
show the addition of a “sleep transistor” designed to reduce leakage current.
FIG. 1A
shows leakage current flowing from power supply node
102
, through the transistors within circuit block
104
to reference node
106
.
FIG. 1A
represents a circuit with large leakage currents.
FIG. 1B
shows sleep transistor
110
in series with the leakage current path. The sleep transistor is typically a transistor with a large threshold voltage. Turning off sleep transistor
110
when circuit block
104
is not active reduces the leakage current.
Circuit techniques can be effective to reduce leakage current, but typically require additional area on the integrated circuit die. For example, as shown in
FIG. 1B
, sleep transistor
110
is an addition to the circuit. For large integrated circuits, many such sleep transistors can be added resulting in considerable additional consumption of integrated circuit die area.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for an alternate method and apparatus to reduce leakage current in integrated circuits.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4330809 (1982-05-01), Stanley
patent: 5557551 (1996-09-01), Craft
patent: 5873053 (1999-02-01), Pricer et al.
patent: 6476627 (2002-11-01), Pelissier et al.
patent: 6489793 (2002-12-01), Jones et al.
patent: 6513124 (2003-01-01), Furuichi et al.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

Rating

Active cooling to reduce leakage power does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Active cooling to reduce leakage power, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Active cooling to reduce leakage power will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3310726