Abstract
The level shifters (LSs) are the most significant interfacing circuits in multi-supply mixed-signal systems. This letter presents a high-speed and energy-efficient voltage level shifter with wide-range conversion from sub-threshold to I/O voltage. The proposed level shifter with split-control output driver significantly enhances the speed, energy and static power performance. The proposed LS is implemented in 0.18 \(\upmu \)m CMOS technology, and simulation results confirm that it efficiently converts sub-threshold input voltage (240 mV) to nominal output voltage (1.8 V) without employing multi-threshold devices. The proposed LS exhibits delay of 6.43 ns and energy/transition of 38.39 fJ with significantly low switching current for 0.4 V/1 MHz input signal and 1.8 V output level.
References
Wang, A., Chandrakasan, A.: A 180 mV subthreshold FFT processor using a minimum energy design methodology. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits 40(1), 310–319 (2005)
Alioto, M.: Ultra-low power VLSI circuit design demystified and explained: a tutorial. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I: Reg. Pap. 59(1), 3–29 (2012)
Zhao, W., Alvarez, A., Ha, Y.: A 65-nm 25.1ns 30.7 fJ robust sub-threshold level shifter with wide conversion range. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Exp. Briefs 62(7), 671–675 (2015)
Kim, Y., Lee, Y., Sylvester, D., Blaauw, D.: SLC: Split-control Level Converter for dense and stable wide range voltage conversion. IEEE Proc. ESSCIRC, pp. 478–481 (2012)
Lanuzza, M., Corsonello, P., Perri, S.: Fast and wide range voltage conversion in multisupply voltage designs. IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integ. Syst. 23(2), 388–391 (2015)
Lutkemeier, S., Ruckert, U.: A subthreshold to above-threshold level shifter comprising a Wilson current mirror. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Exp. Briefs 57(9), 721–724 (2010)
Osaki, Y., Hirose, T., Kuroki, N., Numa, M.: A low-power level shifter with logic error correction circuit for extremely low-voltage digital CMOS LSIs. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits 47(2), 1776–1783 (2012)
Wen, L., Cheng, X., Tian, S., Wen, H., Zeng, X.: Sub-threshold level shifter with self-controlled current limiter by detecting output error. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Exp. Briefs 63(4), 346–350 (2016)
Lotfi, R., Saberi, M., Hosseini, S..R., Ahmadi Mehr, A.R., Staszewski, R.B.: Energy-Efficient wide-range voltage Level Shifters reaching 4.2 fJ/Transition. IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits 1(2), 34–37 (2018)
Zhou, J., Wang, C., Liu, X., Zhang, X., Je, M.: An ultra-low voltage level shifter using revised Wilson current mirror for fast and energy-efficient wide-range voltage conversion from sub-threshold to I/O voltage. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I: Reg. Briefs 62(3), 697–705 (2015)
Luo, S.C., Huang, C.J., Chu, Y.H.: A wide-range level shifter using a modified Wilson current mirror hybrid buffer. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I: Reg. Briefs 61(6), 1656–1665 (2014)
Kabirpour, S., Jalali, M.: A power-delay and area efficient voltage level shifter based on a reflected-output Wilson current mirror level shifter. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Exp. Briefs 67(2), 250–254 (2020)
Le, V.L., Kim, T.T.-H.: An area and energy efficient ultra-low voltage level shifter with pass transistor and reduced-swing output buffer in 65nm CMOS. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Exp. Briefs 65(5), 607–611 (2018)
You, H., Yuan, J., Tang, W., Qiao, S., Hei, Y.: An energy-efficient level shifter for ultra low-voltage digital LSIs. IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II: Exp. Briefs (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSII.2020.2980681
Selvakumar, R., Arvind, C.: A 16 ns, 28 fJ wide-range sub-threshold level converter using low-voltage current mirror. Circuits Syst. Signal Process. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00034-020-01524-5
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rajendran, S., Chakrapani, A. Fast and Energy-Efficient Level Shifter Using Split-Control Driver for Mixed-Signal Systems. Arab J Sci Eng 46, 10281–10286 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-021-05393-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-021-05393-1