Methodology for defining the characterization corners of foundation IPs and hard macros in an adaptive body-biased controlled area

This paper unveils a new methodology for defining the characterization corners for standard cells, memories or any hard macros for their use in conjunction with an adaptive body bias control loop system. The objective is to define the optimum body bias values that maximize the speed performance of a digital macro without degrading its power consumption by analyzing the transistor behavior among process, voltage and temperature variations. The proposed methodology developed for the 22FDX technology from GLOBALFOUNDRIES demonstrates significant performance gains over the full voltage range of the technology wrt any other compensation techniques.