Design of a 22-nm FinFET-Based SRAM With Read Buffer for Near-Threshold Voltage Operation

作者：Park Juhyun^*; Yang Younghwi; Jeong Hanwool; Song Seung Chul; Wang Joseph; Yeap Geoffrey; Jung Seong Ook

来源：IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2015, 62(6): 1698-1704.

DOI：10.1109/TED.2015.2420681

• FinFET
• near threshold
• read buffer
• static random access memory (SRAM)
• threshold voltage

A near-threshold voltage (V-th) operation circuit is important for both energy-and performance-constrained applications. The conventional 6-T SRAM bit-cell designed for super-V-th operation cannot achieve the target SRAM bit-cell margins such as the hold stability, read stability, and write ability margins in the near-V-th region. The recently proposed SRAM bit-cells with read buffer suffer from the problems of low read 0 sensing margin and large read 1 sensing time in the near-V-th region. This paper proposes a read buffer with adjusted the number of fins or V-th to resolve the problems in the near-V-th region. This paper also proposes a design method for pull-up, pull-down, and pass-gate transistors to achieve the target hold stability and presents an effective write assist circuit to achieve the target write ability in the near-V-th region.

• 出版日期2015-6