Multi-Voltage and Level-Shifter Assignment Driven Floorplanning

Abstract

As technology scales, low power design has become a significant requirement for SOC designers. Among the existing techniques, Multiple-Supply Voltage (MSV) is a popular and effective method to reduce both dynamic and static power. Besides, level shifters consume area and delay, and should be considered during floorplanning. In this paper, we present a new floorplanning system, called MVLSAF, to solve multi-voltage and level shifter assignment problem. We use a convex cost network flow algorithm to assign arbitrary number of legal working voltages and a minimum cost flow algorithm to handle level-shifter assignment. The experimental results show MVLSAF is effective.