Design of Low Power And Wide Voltage Range Sub-threshold Level Shifter

The method of multiple voltage domains in very large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits design has been widely used to achieve low power of SoC system.Level shifters are needed in the interfacing between power domains supplied by different voltages.In this paper we present a new low power level shifter which can work in a wide voltage range. The multiple threshold MOSFET technique is used in the level shifter design and diode-connected PMOS are also used to limit pull-up strength, which make the level shifter convert sub-threshold voltage signals to normal above threshold voltage signals successfully.The level shifter is designed in SMIC 0.13 μm and simulation results indicate that this level shifter can work well across different processes and temperatures and can steadily convert signals of 0.18 V to 1.2 V when the highest input frequency is 1 MHz,which shows robust operation and reliable performance with sub-threshold logic input.