The domino logic circuit is popular in high performance VLSI chips. A feedback keeper is usually used to overcome the charge sharing problem in the domino circuit. In this paper, a contention-alleviated static keeper (CASK) is proposed. The key idea is to reduce the contention between the pull-down network and the feedback keeper by lowering the gate voltage of the keeper. By using the CASK technique, better performance can be achieved, in addition to maintained noise robustness, with smaller sizing factor. By tuning the gate-bias voltage to the feedback PMOS, the proposed keeper is suitable for domino circuits with a range of supply voltage. Additionally, the CASK has been demonstrated to enhance the performance of low-power low swing domino circuits, and the results show that delay and power can be reduced by 26% and 11%, respectively.
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