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Solid-State Electronics, Vol.58, No.1, 83-95, 2011
Low power options for 32 nm always-on SRAM architecture
The SRAM 6T bit-cell suffers many limitations in advanced technology nodes among which variability effects. Various alternatives have been experimented and the paper focuses on the 5T-Portless bit-cell. Read and write operations are operated by varying voltage conditions. Literature regarding 32 nm CMOS for Portless SRAM has been reviewed and improvements are presented. The bit-cells are arranged in matrix to permit a current-mode read operation as opposed to voltage-based sensing techniques. Thus safety and stability of the bit-cell operation is established without constraints on memory periphery. The current-mode operation enables a significant gain in dynamic power consumption beneficial to always-on memories. The paper presents different existing solutions to limit the power consumption and their limitations in thin CMOS technologies. The portless bit-cell is presented as a low power architecture alternative to 6T-SRAM. A matrix test-chip is currently under fabrication in bulk CMOS 32 nm. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.