A 0.9-V, 150-MHz, 10-mW, 4 mm/sup 2/, 2-D discrete cosine transform core processor with variable threshold-voltage (VT) scheme

A 4 mm/sup 2/, two-dimensional (2-D) 8/spl times/8 discrete cosine transform (DCT) core processor for HDTV-resolution video compression/decompression in a 0.3-/spl mu/m CMOS triple-well, double-metal technology operates at 150 MHz from a 0.9-V power supply and consumes 10 mW, only 2% power dissipation of a previous 3.3-V design. Circuit techniques for dynamically varying threshold voltage (VT scheme) are introduced to reduce active power dissipation with negligible overhead in speed, standby power dissipation, and chip area. A way to explore V/sub DD/-V/sub th/ design space is also studied.