Double-Row Flip-flop Design Under Advanced Technology and Its IC-Level Effects

As semiconductor technology advances towards more sophisticated nodes and the physical dimensions of standard cells decrease, significant challenges arise in large standard cell design due to the reduction of available metal tracks. This necessitates the application of multi-row standard cells. For a comprehensive analysis of the effects of applying multi-row standard cells in VLSI design, in this study, we initially handcrafted a DRC/LVS clean double-row flip-flop using advanced 7nm process technology. This novel approach optimizes both internal transistor placement and in-cell routing to enhance the performance and efficiency of standard cells. As a result, it achieves better timing metrics compared to the single-row flip-flop counterpart. Furthermore, we also conduct chip-level implementation using both single-row and double-row flip-flops to provide a comprehensive comparison in terms of power-performance-area (PPA) perspective.