Current mirror based low voltage single supply CMOS level up-shifter

Abstract

A current mirror based low voltage single supply CMOS level up-shifter (fcm-ls) for upconverting signals from 0.4 to 0.8V power supply domain is presented in this work. Based on the post-layout simulation, fcm-ls provides 48.5% lower energy consumption and 29.7% better speed than a similar circuit topology (vl-ls). Both circuits are implemented in 65nm CMOS process and use low threshold voltage transistors. With a power supply voltage of 0.8V, and an input voltage range of 0.4V, we obtain up to 63.4% energy-delay-product (EDP) improvement at 500MHz frequency and 590fF output loading, over reference circuit [1]. Active area is optimized to achieve low static and dynamic energy consumption at the maximum load capacitance. The limits of proposed circuit are verified using the post-layout simulation results.