Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) based designs are the most popular trend towards semiconductor technology evolution. The important subsystem in a configurable logic block is a Look-Up Table (LUT) in the FPGA chip. If the power reduction techniques are implemented in the LUTs, there would be an overall very less power while implementing the design in FPGAs. This study mainly focuses on designing LUTs using Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM) circuits. To implement these LUTs, half adder, full adder, half subtract and full subtractor circuits are chosen with PROM concept. Both the conventional CMOS and pseudo-nMOS style architectures are built for the LUTs. Pseudo-nMOS based LUTs are offering less area and low power compared with conventional CMOS approach. A pseudo-nMOS based full adder LUT design produce 564.5μm2 layoutarea,whichis less comparedwith765.5μm2producedbyconventionalCMOSfulladderLUT.Apseudo-nMOS based full subtractor design produce 1.119 μW dynamic power dissipation, which is less compared with 3.905 μW produced by conventional CMOS full subtractor. Also the design cycle time for FPGAs are much less compared with ASICs. Simulation results are verified using Microwind and Digital Schematic (DSCH) Electronic Computer Aided (CAD) design tools with BSIM4 MOSFET model in 60 nm technology. This study conveys that how the Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM) can act as a Look-Up Table (LUT) within a FPGA architecture. Since engineers are designing the circuits with most care with circuit design, layout design, etc., Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) are the best at providing low power, high speed and low size at the cost of design cycle time. But with the current semiconductor technology growth, even FPGAs are being manufactured with high speed with more versatile functionalities.
Keywords: CMOS, FPGA, Look-Up Table, Microwind, PROM, Pseudo-nMOS