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2012 Fourth International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Modelling and Simulation

A Design Scheme of Toggle Operation Based Johnson Counter with Efficient Clock
Gating

Sani M. Ismail, Saadmaan Rahman, Mohammed M. Rahman and Neelanjana S. Ferdous


Electrical, Electronic and Communication Engineering
Military Institute of Science and Technology, Bangladesh University of Professionals
Dhaka, Bangladesh
sani@ulkasemi.com, saadmaan1009@ymail.com, mizanjewel@ymail.com, neelanjana_subin_ferdous@ymail.com

AbstractThe performance of any system strongly depends on benefits of avoiding unnecessary clock pulses and applying
effective design methods applied on various segments of that only effective clock sequences. Researches have been
system. To provide an intelligent and smart architecture of a conducted to improve various systems using different clock
computer system, a dedicated design is needed which is both gating schemes. Clock transition provides vital contribution
power friendly and less complicated. As computer system in power dissipation. Several researches claim that around 15
consists of sequential circuits mostly, it is very important to to 45% of power dissipation in a system occurs due to clock
design sequential circuits effectively and flawlessly for signals [1]. So, total power dissipation in a circuit can be
ensuring least power dissipation and architectural simplicity. greatly reduced if efficient clock management system is
Different kinds of counters are considered to be very
applied in the system.
important segments of sequential circuit system. In this paper,
In this paper, we have described a power efficient design
we have proposed a design scheme to develop a Johnson
counter with necessary clock gating which is based on toggle of Johnson counter. We have proposed a toggle operation
operation of J-K flip-flops. This design scheme is more based Johnson counter with clock gating considering this
sophisticated and prominent than the conventional shift power dissipation issue as well as interconnection issues. In
register based design as this scheme provides fewer section II, we have described the power dissipation in CMOS
interconnections and comparatively lower power dissipation. sequential circuits. In section III, we have described the
conventional design of Johnson counter and in section IV,
Keywords-clock gating; digital circuit; J-K flip flop; Johnson we have described our proposed design. In section V, we
counter; VLSI interconnection; VLSI power dissipation have described some relationships among several parameters
of our proposed system. In Section VI, relevant simulations
I. INTRODUCTION are discussed and in section VII, we have described the
power and interconnection friendly characteristics of our
Johnson counter is a very useful counter system in the system compared to conventional design.
vast world of computer design as it provides a specific
pattern of data in loop synchronously, which is essential for II. POWER DISSIPATION IN SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS
various logic designs. In practical computer design, we need
CMOS logic gates are very power-efficient as they
to provide this kind of specific pattern of data to specific
dissipate almost zero power at idle mode. Power dissipation
segments of a particular system in order to establish a desired
was not a very serious concerning matter for various chips
logic function. For applying various kinds of logic, all kinds
before. But in recent time, power dissipation has become an
of counter systems are quite useful as they provide different
alarming issue because of the development of clock
kinds of sequences in a synchronous manner.
frequencies and size of chips [2]. Different kinds of power
All computer operations are executed synchronously
dissipations (e.g. static and dynamic power dissipation) have
following a clock cycle. So, sequential circuits are of great
been studied and discussed for finding an efficient way to
value in any computer design. Sequential circuits along with
reduce them.
combinational circuits are integrated in a small area of a
Static power dissipation occurs due to various incidents
chip. As chip area is shrinking gradually, various reliabilities
in CMOS like sub threshold conduction through inactive
are becoming vital alarming design issues. One of the
transistors, oxide gate tunneling current, reverse biased
reliabilities, which is a prime concern to the CMOS
diodes leakage, contention current etc. Dynamic power
designers, is known as power dissipation. A sequential
dissipation occurs due to load capacitance discharging and
circuit system is based on clock pulses which also causes
short circuit current while in switching mode [2].
vital power dissipation in CMOS circuit. Power dissipation
Several researches on sequential circuits power
in sequential circuits will be discussed in the next section
dissipation have been developed to ensure maximum power
broadly.
savings [3]-[5]. Sequential logic circuits are considered to be
Various techniques have been introduced to reduce
the prime contributors to power dissipation as they are fully
power dissipation. One of the most effective techniques is
operated by a clock input [6]. Clock input forces sequential
clock gating technique. Clock gating system provides the
circuits to change their present states synchronously

2166-8531/12 $26.00 2012 IEEE 387


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DOI 10.1109/CIMSim.2012.52
according to the logic. Sequential circuits operate only on
positive or negative edge transitions or sometimes these
sequential circuits can be operated on both edge transitions
[7]-[10]. So, clock pulses make a sequential circuit
operational according to the logic applied. But at the same
time, clock transition also provides a vital contribution to
power dissipation. Clock transition means the change of the
clock value, from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0.
Dynamic power dissipates in sequential circuits when the
clock provides a transition due to short circuit between VDD
and ground and charging and discharging of load
capacitance. To describe the power dissipation for clock
pulses, we can consider a simple CMOS logic inverter which
is considered as a vital element in CMOS design.
Fig. 1 represents a basic CMOS inverter which provides
inverted output. When the clock provides positive edge, the
NMOS will be activated and the PMOS will be deactivated,
providing the output 0. When the clock provides negative Figure 2. Clock edge rise time
edge, the PMOS will be activated providing VDD or 1 at the
output node.
Unlike these two switching actions, there is another
switching phenomenon which provides major contribution to
power dissipation. In CMOS design, PMOS and NMOS are
both activated for a certain amount of time while clock
transition occurs. The rise time and fall time of clock edges
are considered to be 0 ideally. But practically, clock has a
specific rise time and fall time (Fig. 2) which is not
negligible if we consider switching power dissipation. At a
certain point of rise time and fall time, both NMOS and
PMOS are on. This creates an electrical path between VDD
and ground to pass current. This current is known as short
circuit current or through current. This current appears as a
spike (Fig. 3) in every clock transitions for a very short time.
As current passes, power dissipation occurs. Transient power Figure 3. Current spike in Inverter MOSFET due to clock
consumption also occurs due to switching current which is transitions
required to charge the internal node during switching.
Load capacitance also plays a vital role in CMOS power half cycle, when the PMOS is active, the load capacitance is
dissipation. Recalling the basic CMOS inverter in Fig. 1, at charged. At the next half cycle, when the PMOS is off and
NMOS is on, the load capacitance will be discharged by
providing current through the NMOS to ground. So, in a full
cycle, certain amount of power is dissipated due to current
provided by the load capacitance [2].
As Sequential circuit requires frequent clock transitions
to operate according to logic applied, power dissipation is
very much serious concern here. It is seen that, almost all
kinds of dissipations are executed at clock transitions, so it is
very important to design an efficient clock management
system or clock gating system to control clock pulses to a
certain segment of sequential circuit. Sometimes, a clock
pulse has no effect on the stored value of flip-flop according
to logic. This kind of clock transition is called ineffective
clock pulse. This ineffective clock pulses, logically dont
change the value stored in flip-flops, but contribute in power
dissipation as it is causing switching in corresponding flip-
flops. For low power design, these clock pulses can be
masked at that certain time for those certain flip flops so that
clock pulses are allowed to that part of sequential circuit only
when it changes the value stored in it. This process will be
Figure 1. CMOS inverter
very effective for minimizing power dissipation [10]-[11].

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We have developed our proposed Johnson counter According to the truth table and the schematic, it is seen
keeping these power dissipation matters in mind. First of all, that inverted output of the first D-flip flop is connected with
we have designed a J-K toggle operation based Johnson the D input of the last D-flip flop. All other flip-flops are
counter as it requires comparatively less interconnections provided their corresponding D input from the output of the
than conventional D or J-K shift register based Johnson next flip flop. All flip flops are provided the same clock so it
counter. Also we have developed a very effective clock is a synchronous counter system. According to this design,
gating system so that flip-flops in our design are provided the system is working as a shift register to count the value
clock pulses only when they are effective for the given in Table I.
corresponding flip-flop, blocking the clock ineffective N-bit Johnson counter can be developed following this
modes. Thus our proposed system will play a supreme role in design. In that case, all the flip-flops will be provided
minimizing power dissipation of the whole system. common clock and D-input of any flip-flop will be provided
from the output of next flip-flop as usual.
III. CONVENTIONAL DESIGN OF JOHNSON COUNTER We have noticed some disadvantages of this
Generally, Johnson counter is designed with D or J-K conventional design which has been described below:
flip-flops based on shift register technique. The truth table A. Absence of Clock Management or Clock Gating System
of a 2 bit positive edge Johnson counter [12] is given in
TABLE I. The schematic diagram of 2-bit Johnson counter This system is a synchronous system where all the flip-
(conventional design) is illustrated in Fig. 4. flops are provided same clock. As we have discussed before
in section II that ineffective clock pulses in sequential
TABLE I. TRUTH TABLE OF 2-BIT JOHNSON COUNTER circuits provide unnecessary power dissipation, thats why a
State Q1 Q0 Clock pulse
controlled clock management or clock gating system is
S1 0 0 1 needed to be installed to provide only the necessary clock
S2 1 0 2 pulses to a corresponding flip-flop.
S3 1 1 3 After clock transition or switching occurs, if the present
S4 0 1 4 value stored in the flip-flop is same as the value stored at
previous state, then it can be said that the flip-flop is in
holding mode or holding state. That means, in this mode,
the flip-flop value is independent of the switching edge of
the clock. These ineffective clock pulses can be blocked at
that instant for that certain flip-flop, only the effective clock
pulses can be allowed. This process is useful for ensuring
lower power dissipation [3-5]. Fig. 5 shows the holding
states of 2 bit Johnson counter. The circled portion in the
figure represents the effective clock edges for the
corresponding flip-flops signals.
B. Interconnections
The interconnection within the system components is
also a prime concern. In CMOS VLSI design, when a large
amount of circuit components are integrated in a very tiny
space of a chip, interconnection issues are carefully
considered. As interconnections create various parasitic and
stray capacitances, so an efficient scheme is needed to
develop a system routing which provides less capacitance
problems. It will be observed that our proposed system is
more efficient considering interconnection issues.

Figure 5. Holding states and effective clock edges for 2 bit Johnson
Figure 4. Johnson counter (conventional design with D flip-flop) counter (conventional design)

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IV. PROPOSED DESIGN FOR JOHNSON COUNTER TABLE II. TRUTH TABLE OF 4-BIT JOHNSON COUNTER

Our proposed system consists of several blocks to State Q3 Q2 Q1 Q0 Clock


provide individual services. The system is illustrated in the pulse
S1 0 0 0 0 1
block diagram (Fig. 6). S2 1 0 0 0 2
A. Master Clock S3 1 1 0 0 3
S4 1 1 1 0 4
Master clock is the system default clock. In a complete S5 1 1 1 1 5
system, variety of clock sequences needed to be provided to S6 0 1 1 1 6
a variety of segments. All those clock sequences should be S7 0 0 1 1 7
generated by a controlled operation between master clock S8 0 0 0 1 8
and several masking clocks.
We have developed both 2-bit and 4-bit Johnson
B. Masking Clock Counter according to our design scheme. The circuit
Masking clocks are needed to mask the unnecessary diagrams are illustrated in Fig. 7. In our system, each and
clock pulses of master clock to provide power efficient every flip flop will get the clock pulse when it is needed to
clock sequence to a certain flip-flop. toggle the value stored in it, so there is no scope for
ineffective clock pulse transition when a flip-flop is in
C. Combinational Logic Circuit holding mode. Thus power dissipation has been minimized.
Master clock and Masking clocks are processed in a Also, as J-K flip flop has been used with toggle
combinational logic circuit system which provides operation, so we have been able to avoid several
necessary clock sequences. This segment works as clock interconnections (e.g. last flip-flop D-input to first flip-flop
gating system. inverted output connection, different flip-flops connections).
Thus the system has become very sophisticated and
D. Series of Flip-flops practically effective for ensuring both fewer
This block executes the main operation of Johnson interconnections and lower power dissipation.
counter. We have proposed the toggle operation of J-K flip-
flop (both inputs at 1) rather than shift register technique. V. RELATIONSHIPS AND DERIVED EQUATIONS
We have connected all the J, K inputs of the flip-flops to We have established some relationships between the
VDD or 1. Whenever a flip-flop will get a clock edge master clock and the clock sequences provided in the flip
(positive edge for positive edge triggered flip-flop), the flops in our proposed Johnson counter and derived some
stored value in it will be changed. We have developed the equations. We have also defined a relationship between
clock gating system to control the clock pulses in these flip clock sequences of 2 bit system and 4 bit system and
flops. proposed that clock sequences of n bit system can be
E. Output defined with certain protocols or common equations.
This section will provide the output of the Johnson A. Number of States
counter. The output of the Johnson Counter is provided in If number of bit is n, then number of states Sn will be:
the truth table in TABLE I (2 bit) and TABLE II (4 bit).
Sn = 2 n (1)
n = 1, 2, 4,8,16,............2k
k= 0 and positive integers

If number of bits = 2, then there will be 4 states, if


number of bits = 4, there will be 8 states and so on. This
equation resembles the relationship between the number of
bits and number of states in Johnson Counter.
B. Relationships Between Master Clock and Clock
Sequences
Assume that the frequency of master clock is f. If we
consider the 2 bit Johnson counter we have proposed, then
there are two flip-flops (Q0 and Q1) with two different clock
sequences (clkQ0 and clkQ1).

Figure 6. Block diagram of our proposed system

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(a)

(b)
Figure 7. Proposed design of Johnson counter system: (a) 2-bit, (b) 4-bit

The relationship equations between the master clock These are the relationships between the master clock and
(clkf) and clock sequences (clkQ0 and clkQ1) for 2 bit the clock sequences of flip flops. The clock gating circuit of
proposed Johnson counter are given below: our system is designed following these equations. It is
observed that lower frequency clocks are used as masking
clocks (e.g. clk_f/2, clk_f/4). These masking clocks consist
clkQ 0 ( 2 bit ) = clkf clkf 1 (2) of and of master clock frequency respectively. So, the
masking clock can be generated from the master clock by
clkQ1( 2 bit ) = clkf clkf 1 (3) reducing frequency. For different bit Johnson Counter,
different masking clocks needed with different frequencies.
Where, f1= f (4) But a rule or protocol or more specific equations can be
2
derived to establish a relationship between master clock and
several clock sequences provided in several flip-flops for
In case of 4 bit Johnson counter we have proposed, the
different bit operations.
relationships between clock sequences in 4 flip-flops and
However, we have established relationships between 2-
the master clock are as follows:
bit system and 4 bit system. From equation (2), (3) and
equation (5), (6), (7), (8) we find that:
clkQ 0 ( 4 bit ) = clkf clkf 1 clkf 2 (5)
clkQ1( 4 bit ) = clkf clkf 1 clkf 2 (6) clkQ 0( 4 bit ) = clkQ 0( 2 bit ) clkf 2 (10)

clkQ 2 ( 4 bit ) = clkf clkf 1 clkf 2 (7) clkQ1( 4 bit ) = clkQ1( 2 bit ) clkf 2 (11)

clkQ 3( 4 bit ) = clkf clkf 1 clkf 2 (8) clkQ 2 ( 4 bit ) = clkQ 0 ( 2 bit ) clkf 2 (12)
clkQ 3( 4 bit ) = clkQ1( 2 bit ) clkf 2 (13)
f2= f (9)
4

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So, we can established general equations for clock
sequences of n bit ( n= 0,1,2,4,8,16 2k) Johnson counter
with respect to basic 2 bit Johnson counter clock sequences
clkQ 0 ( 2 bit ) and clkQ1( 2 bit ) . These relationships will be helpful
to develop a clock tree for n bit system. As the entire clock
sequences of n bit system can be derived from basic 2 bit
system clock sequences and they are related with systematic (a)
equations, we can develop the clock tree for n bit system
using programmable logic array circuit.
It is important to notify that the value n, which
resembles bit number of a system, should be a value 2k
where k is 0 or any positive integers. If the value of n is any
other value except 2k like 3, 34 or 24, then they dont follow
the established relationships. It is because the binary number
system is of 2 digits (0, 1). Thats why our derived
relationships only support 2k bit system.
But different kinds of bit systems used in computer
design are the value 2k (e.g. 32 bit system, 64 bit system
etc.). Thats why it can be stated that 2k system relationships
described here are adequate for designing clock tree of any
computer system. (b)

VI. SIMULATIONS
We have simulated the system we have design in
ALTERA QUARTUS software using schematic simulation
technique.
First we have simulated the conventional design of
Johnson counter for number of bit 2. The simulation is
illustrated in Fig. 8 (a).
From the simulation, it is seen that, although each of the
flip flop needs only 2 clock pulses in a cycle to operate
correctly, it is provided with 2 extra clock pulses which have
no activity on the corresponding flip-flop. That two extra
clock pulses are causing unnecessary power dissipation.
Then we have simulated our proposed design (2-bit and
4-bit) in the same software in same simulation environment. (c)
The simulations are illustrated in Fig. 8 (b) and 8 (c)
respectively. It is seen that any flip-flop is getting a pulse Figure 8. Simulation of Johnson counter: (a) conventional design, (b)
when it is necessary. There might be several clocks (master proposed design (2bit), (c) proposed design (4bit)
clock, masking clocks) in the system, but every flip flop is
receiving a controlled clock sequence generated by the In conventional system, all the four flip-flops receive
combinational logic circuit (different for different bit total of 32 pulses as clock triggering signals, where in our
operation), processing master clock and all available proposed system, the four flip-flops receive a total of only 8
masking clocks. Thus the total power dissipation in the clock pulses. So, theoretically power dissipation due to
whole system is controlled efficiently. clock transitions is minimized (32-8)/32 %= 75% (Fig.
9(a)).
VII. CONCLUSIONS But practically power dissipation is decreased less than
Our proposed design is more prominent and efficient this percentage as we have used some additional clock
than the conventional design considering power dissipation gating system consists of combinational logic circuit [9].
due to clock transitions and simplicity of interconnections. Considering power dissipation in clock gating system also,
In case of power dissipation, our observation is more power dissipation in Johnson counter has been lowered
focused on power dissipation due to clock transitions as around 45% (Fig. 9(b)). So, the overall power dissipation
majority of power dissipation occurs due to clock due to clock transitions can be minimized a lot by adopting
transitions. It is observed that in one process cycle of 4 bit our proposed system. For 2 bit system, the percentage value
Johnson counter (from 0000 to next 0000), there are total 8 of power dissipation minimization will be 50 (not
master clock pulses. considering power dissipation in clock gating system).

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output point as there is no schematic requirement of
connecting one cell output with anothers input. Connecting
inputs with common internal VDD layer rather than
interconnections between cells is more routing friendly
process (proposed system). So, it is obvious that our
proposed system is both power and interconnection friendly.
It has been noticed than only the positive edges are
necessary for executing the positive edge triggered system
properly. Negative edges are not required for operations but
they are causing power dissipation. Similarly positive edges
cause extra power dissipation in negative edge triggered
system. But we cannot mask just one type of edges because
(a)
to provide another positive edge, negative edge transitions
are required and vice versa. But there is one solution in [7]-
[10] proposing double edge triggering of flip-flops.
Adopting this process we can trigger the flip flops in both
edges where power dissipation for unnecessary edge
transitions will be reduced and system will be made faster.
As our system requires additional clock gating system, it
may increase delay and size of the whole system. Moreover,
clock gating system itself dissipates a certain amount of
power which may not be negligible for further processing of
larger systems with larger clock gating circuit. So, further
research is suggested to take the clock gating technique to a
whole new advanced efficiency level.
(b)
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Figure 9. Comparison of total power dissipation between conventional
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