A low power and high density cache memory based on novel SRAM cell

Based on the observation that dynamic occurrence of zeros in the cache access stream and cache-resident memory values of ordinary programs exhibit a strong bias towards zero, this paper presents a novel CMOS four-transistor (4T) SRAM cell for very high density and low power cache applications. This cell retains its data with leakage current and positive feedback without refresh cycle. The new cell size is 20% smaller than a conventional six-transistor cell using same design rules and delay access of a cache based on new 4T SRAM cell is 32% smaller than a cache based on 6T SRAM cell. Also the dynamic and static power consumption of new cell is 40% and 20% smaller than 6T SRAM cell, respectively.

[1]  A. Azizi Mazreah,et al.  A novel zero-aware read-static-noise-margin-free SRAM cell for high density and high speed cache application , 2008, 2008 9th International Conference on Solid-State and Integrated-Circuit Technology.

[2]  Arash Azizi Mazreah,et al.  A Novel Four-Transistor SRAM Cell with Low Dynamic Power Consumption , 2008 .

[3]  Chia-Lin Yang,et al.  Zero-aware asymmetric SRAM cell for reducing cache power in writing zero , 2004, IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integr. Syst..

[4]  Andreas Moshovos,et al.  Low-leakage asymmetric-cell SRAM , 2003, IEEE Trans. Very Large Scale Integr. Syst..

[5]  Babak Falsafi,et al.  A case for asymmetric-cell cache memories , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems.

[6]  K. Osada,et al.  A low-power four-transistor SRAM cell with a stacked vertical poly-silicon PMOS and a dual-word-voltage scheme , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[7]  Yu Cao,et al.  New Generation of Predictive Technology Model for Sub-45 nm Early Design Exploration , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.