VariMAX
Managing Process Variability
VariMAX™ addresses increasing process variability. Traditional approaches to variation management involve increased design margins and a large number of extraction and analysis corners. These approaches struggle in technologies like 65nm and 40nm where performance and leakage vary widely across a population of otherwise good devices. Open-Silicon is addressing this with the VariMAX product, which consists of back biasing today and adaptive voltage and frequency control in the future.
Back Biasing for ASICs, Today
Back biasing is a technique that has been used for many years now in the ultra-high volume silicon space, where person-decades could affordably be spent in device optimization. By making this technology available to the ASIC space, Open-Silicon has enabled customers with lower volumes to now enjoy the same leakage and performance variation control and the associated power, performance, and device yield advantages.
Open-Silicon's back biasing design approach works by controlling the bulk transistor node voltage so that fast, leaky parts are reined in by adaptive calibration of the silicon. The complete diagram is shown below:
