A fast and low-power level shifter for multi-supply voltage designs

This paper proposes a high-speed and ultra-low power level shifter (LS) capable of realizing wide-range voltage level conversion. Two key features are contained in the presented LS to support its superior performances. First, a novel boost control circuit is proposed to boost input voltage and strengthen pull-down driven capability, which results in significant improvement of operation speed and conversion range. Second, multi-threshold COMS (MTCMOS) and sub-threshold device sizing techniques are employed to reduce the static current, thereby obtaining ultra-low leakage power consumption. Post-layout simulation results demonstrate that the proposed LS implemented with SMIC 55-nm technology can convert 140mV low-voltage to 1.2 V. Meanwhile, when evaluated with the low supply voltage of 0.3V at 1 MHz frequency, the transition energy of the presented LS is 87.35 fJ. Moreover, the static power consumption and propagation delay are only 64.2 pW and 18.07ns, respectively.