Energy optimization of 6T SRAM cell using low-voltage and high-performance inverter structures

The performance of the cell deteriorates, when static random access memory (SRAM) cell is operated below 1V supply voltage with continuous scale down of the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The conventional 6T, 8T-SRAM cells suffer writeability and read static noise margins (SNM) at low-voltages leads to degradation of cell stability. To improve the cell stability and reduce the dynamic power dissipation at low- voltages of the SRAM cell, we proposed four SRAM cells based on inverter structures with less energy consumption using voltage divider bias current sink/source inverter and NOR/NAND gate using a pseudo-nMOS inverter. The design and implementation of SRAM cell using proposed inverter structures are compared with standard 6T, 8T and ST-11T SRAM cells for different supply voltages at 22-nm CMOS technology exhibit better performance of the cell. The read/write static noise margin of the cell significantly increases due to voltage divider bias network built with larger cell-ratio during read path. The load capacitance of the cell is reduced with minimized switching transitions of the devices during high-to-low and low- to-high of the pull-up and pull-down networks from VDD to ground leads to on an average 54% of dynamic power consumption. When compared with the existing ones, the read/write power of the proposed cells is reduced to 30%. The static power gets reduced by 24% due to stacking of transistors takes place in the proposed SRAM cells as compare to existing ones. The layout of the proposed cells is drawn at a 45-nm technology, and occupies an area of 1.5 times greater and 1.8 times greater as compared with 6T-SRAM cell

6T-SRAM 1Mb Design with Test Structures and Post Silicon Validation

abstract: Static random-access memories (SRAM) are integral part of design systems as caches and data memories that and occupy one-third of design space. The work presents an embedded low power SRAM on a triple well process that allows body-biasing control. In addition to the normal mode operation, the design is embedded with Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) [Suh07] and Sense Amplifier Test (SA Test) mode. With PUF mode structures, the fabrication and environmental mismatches in bit cells are used to generate unique identification bits. These bits are fixed and known as preferred state of an SRAM bit cell. The direct access test structure is a measurement unit for offset voltage analysis of sense amplifiers. These designs are manufactured using a foundry bulk CMOS 55 nm low-power (LP) process. The details about SRAM bit-cell and peripheral circuit design is discussed in detail, for certain cases the circuit simulation analysis is performed with random variations embedded in SPICE models. Further, post-silicon testing results are discussed for normal operation of SRAMs and the special test modes. The silicon and circuit simulation results for various tests are presented.Dissertation/ThesisMasters Thesis Electrical Engineering 201

ULTRALOW-POWER, LOW-VOLTAGE DIGITAL CIRCUITS FOR BIOMEDICAL SENSOR NODES

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH