Loosely coupled multi-bit flip-flop allocation for power reduction

Merging 1-bit flip-flops into multi-bit flip-flops in the post-placement stage is one of the most effective techniques for minimizing clock power. In this work, we introduce a new style of multi-bit flip-flop, called loosely coupled multi-bit flip-flop (LC-MBFF). The merit of LC-MBFF is that the logically constituent 1-bit flip-flops in LC-MBFF can be physically apart (i.e., no relocation), providing no need to set aside white space. Utilizing LC-MBFFs, we propose a multi-bit flip-flop allocation algorithm which fully explores the diverse allocation of LC-MBFF structures to maximally reduce clock power consumption. Experimental results with ISCAS89 and IWLS2005 benchmark circuits show that our proposed allocation algorithm using the newly designed multi-bit flip-flops is able to reduce on average the clock power by 8.51% while the best known multi-bit flip-flop allocation algorithm [7] reduces by 5.37%. Additionally, we extend our algorithm to support the multi-bit flip-flop allocation for circuits with clock polarity assignment.