Synthesizing and Simulating Look-Ahead Clock Gating Technique

Abstract Clock gating serves as an effective means to diminish the power consumption of digital systems. Among the three recognized gating methods—data-driven, latch-based, and And-gate-based—the data-driven approach stands out as the most prevalent. However, it often renders a significant portion of clock pulses driving the flip-flops (FFs) redundant. While it delivers substantial power savings, its implementation complexity and dependence on specific applications pose challenges. Conversely, the and-gate-based method offers simplicity but results in comparatively minor power reductions. This paper introduces a pioneering approach known as the Look-Ahead Clock Gating Technique, which amalgamates all three methods. Leveraging latch-based FFs, this technique calculates the clock enabling signals for each FF one cycle in advance, based on the current cycle data of dependent FFs.