8-ns CMOS 64 K×4 and 256 K×1 SRAMs

SRAMs (static random-access memory) with a 64 K×4 and 256 K×1 structure and with 8-ns access time have been developed on a 1.0-μm CMOS process. Circuits are designed with source-coupling techniques to achieve high speed with small signal swings, using only CMOS devices. A metal option permits selection of the 64 K×4 or 256 K×1 configuration. The same core architecture has also been used to generate ×8 and ×9 designs. An output-enable (OE) version achieves 3-ns response time. As system speeds have recently increased toward 100-MHz operation, the need for address transition detection (ATD) has diminished as a means for improving the SRAM speed/power ratio. This trend in SRAM design stems mainly from the fact that AC current becomes the most significant fraction of the total current. Accordingly, the design described here employs a purely static path through the entire SRAM, with no requirement of ATD at any point. The resulting DC current is countered with a combined strategy of array subdivision, small-signal techniques, and active preamplification at key points in the data path     

A 4.4 ns CMOS 54×54-b multiplier using pass-transistormultiplexer

A 54×54-b multiplier using pass-transistor multiplexers has been fabricated by 0.25 μm CMOS technology. To enhance the speed performance, a new 4-2 compressor and a carry lookahead adder (CLA), both featuring pass-transistor multiplexers, have been developed. The new circuits have a speed advantage over conventional CMOS circuits because the number of critical-path gate stages is minimized due to the high logic functionality of pass-transistor multiplexers. The active size of the 54×54-b multiplier is 3.77×3.41 mm. The multiplication time is 4.4 ns at a 3.5-V power supply     

A 15-ns 4-Mb CMOS SRAM

A 4-Mb SRAM with a 15-ns access time and a uniquely selectable (×4 or ×1) bit organization has been developed based on a 0.55-μm triple-polysilicon double-metal CMOS technology. An input-controlled PMOS-load (ICPL) sense amplifier, Y-controlled bit-line loads (YCLs), and a transfer word driver (TDW) are three key circuits which have been utilized in addition to the 0.55-μm CMOS technology to achieve the remarkable access time of 15 ns. Bit organization of either ×4 or ×1 can be selected purely electrically, and does not require any pin connection procedure     

A 29-ns 64-Mb DRAM with hierarchical array architecture

A 29-ns (RAS access time), 64-Mb DRAM with hierarchical array architecture has been developed. For consistent high yields and high speed, a CMOS segment driver circuit is used as a hierarchical word line scheme. To achieve high speed, precharge signal (PC) drivers for equalizing the bit lines pairs, and shared sense amplifier signal (SHR) drivers are distributed in the array. To enhance sense amplifiers speed in low array voltage, an over driven sense amplifier is adopted. A hierarchical I/O scheme with semidirect sensing switch is introduced for high speed data transfer in the I/O paths. By combining these proposed circuit techniques and 0.25-μm CMOS process technologies with phase-shift optical lithography, an experimental 64-Mb DRAM has been designed and fabricated. The memory cell size is 0.71×1.20 μm ², and the chip size is 15.91×9.06 mm². A typical access time under 3.3 V power supply voltage is 29 ns     

Circuit techniques for CMOS low-power high-performance multipliers

In this paper we present circuit techniques for CMOS low-power high-performance multiplier design. Novel full adder circuits were simulated and fabricated using 0.8-μm CMOS (in BiCMOS) technology. The complementary pass-transistor logic-transmission gate (CPL-TG) full adder implementation provided an energy savings of 50% compared to the conventional CMOS full adder. CPL implementation of the Booth encoder provided 30% power savings at 15% speed improvement compared to the static CMOS implementation. Although the circuits were optimized for (16×16)-b multiplier using the Booth algorithm, a (6×6)-b implementation was used as a test vehicle in order to reduce simulation time. For the (6×6)-b case, implementation based on CPL-TG resulted in 18% power savings and 30% speed improvement over conventional CMOS     

A CMOS RISC CPU designed for sustained high performance on largeapplications

A 90-MHz CMOS CPU has been designed for sustained performance in workstation and commercial/technical multiuser applications. The CPU is part of a multichip system that achieves a 60-MHz operating frequency with 15-ns asynchronous SRAMs. Key performance features include a 3.5-ns 32-b adder, low skew on-chip clock buffers, and cycling large off-chip caches at the operating frequency. The chip has been fabricated using a 1.0-μm CMOS process that utilizes three-level metal and 480000 transistors on a 14×14-mm die     

DRAM macros for ASIC chips

DRAM macros in 4-Mb (0.8-μm) and 16-Mb (0.5-μm) DRAM process technology generations have been developed for CMOS ASIC applications. The macros use the same area efficient one transistor trench cells as 4-Mb (SPT cell) and 16-R Mb (MINT cell) DRAM products. It is shown that the trench cells with capacitor plates by the grounded substrate are ideal structures as embedded DRAM's. The trench cells built entirely under the silicon surface allow cost effective DRAM and CMOS logic merged process technologies. In the 0.8-μm rule, the DRAM macro has a 32-K×9-b configuration in a silicon area of 1.7×5.0 mm² . It achieves a 27-ns access and a 50-ns cycle times. The other DRAM macro in the 0.5-μm technology is organized in 64 K×18 b. It has a macro area of 2.1×4.9 mm and demonstrated a 23-ns access and a 40-ns cycle times. Small densities and multiple bit data configurations provide a flexibility to ASIC designs and a wide variety of application capabilities. Multiple uses of the DRAM macros bring significant performance leverages to ASIC chips because of the wide data bus and the fast access and cycle times. A data rate more than 1.3 Gb/s is possible by a single chip. Some examples of actual DRAM macro embedded ASIC chips are shown     

1-V power supply high-speed digital circuit technology withmultithreshold-voltage CMOS

1-V power supply high-speed low-power digital circuit technology with 0.5-μm multithreshold-voltage CMOS (MTCMOS) is proposed. This technology features both low-threshold voltage and high-threshold voltage MOSFET's in a single LSI. The low-threshold voltage MOSFET's enhance speed performance at a low supply voltage of 1 V or less, while the high-threshold voltage MOSFET's suppress the stand-by leakage current during the sleep period. This technology has brought about logic gate characteristics of a 1.7-ns propagation delay time and 0.3-μW/MHz/gate power dissipation with a standard load. In addition, an MTCMOS standard cell library has been developed so that conventional CAD tools can be used to lay out low-voltage LSI's. To demonstrate MTCMOS's effectiveness, a PLL LSI based on standard cells was designed as a carrying vehicle. 18-MHz operation at 1 V was achieved using a 0.5-μm CMOS process     

A design for high-speed low-power CMOS fully parallelcontent-addressable memory macros

Described is a design for high-speed low-power-consumption fully parallel content-addressable memory (CAM) macros for CMOS ASIC applications. The design supports configurations ranging from 64 words by 8 bits to 2048 words by 64 bits and achieves around 7.5-ns search access times in CAM macros on a 0.35-μm 3.3-V standard CMOS ASIC technology. A new CAM cell with a pMOS match-line driver reduces search rush current and power consumption, allowing a NOR-type match-line structure suitable for high-speed search operations. It is also shown that the CAM cell has other advantages that lead to a simple high-speed current-saving architecture. A small signal on the match line is detected by a single-ended sense amplifier which has both high-speed and low-power characteristics and a latch function. The same type of sense amplifier is used for a fast read operation, realizing 5-ns access time under typical conditions. For further current savings in search operations, the precharging of the match line is controlled based on the valid bit status. Also, a dual bit switch with optimized size and control reduces the current. CAM macros of 256×54 configuration on test chips showed 7.3-ns search access time with a power-performance metric of 131 fJ/bit/search under typical conditions     

CMOS current steering logic for low-voltage mixed-signal integratedcircuits

A quiet logic family-complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) current steering logic (CSL)-has been developed for use in low-voltage mixed-signal integrated circuits. Compared to a CMOS static logic gate with its output range of ΔV_logic≈V_dd , a CSL gate swings only ΔV_logic≈V_T+0.25 V because the constant current supplied by the PMOS load device is steered to ground through either an NMOS diode-connected device or switching network. Owing to the constant current, digital switching noise is 100× smaller than in static logic. Another useful feature which can be used to calibrate CSL speed against process, temperature, and voltage variations is propagation delay that is approximately constant versus supply voltage and linear with bias current. Several CSL circuits have been fabricated using 0.8 and 1.2 μm high-V_T n-well CMOS processes. Two self-loaded 39-stage ring oscillators fabricated using the 1.2 μm process (1.2 V power supply) exhibited power-delay products of 12 and 70 fJ with average propagation delays of 0.4 and 0.7 ns, respectively. High-V_T and low-V_T CSL ALU's were operational at V _dd≈=0.70 V and V_dd≈0.40 V, respectively     

A Reed-Solomon product-code (RS-PC) decoder chip for DVDapplications

In this paper, a Reed-Solomon Product-Code (RS-PC) decoder for DVD applications is presented. It mainly contains two frame-buffer controllers, a (182, 172) row RS decoder, and a (208, 192) column RS decoder. The RS decoder features an area-efficient key equation solver using a novel modified decomposed inversionless Berlekamp-Massey algorithm. The proposed RS-PC decoder solution was implemented using 0.6 μm CMOS single-poly double-metal (SPDM) standard cells. The chip size is 4.22×3.64 mm² with a core area of 2.90×2.88 mm ^mm², where the total gate count is about 26 K. Test results show that the proposed RS-PC decoder chip can support 4×DVD speed with off-chip frame buffers or 8×DVD speed with embedded frame buffers operating at 3 V     

High-speed BiCMOS technology with a buried twin well structure

A buried twin well and polysilicon emitter structure is developed for high-speed BiCMOS VLSI's. A bipolar transistor of high cutoff frequency (fT= 4 GHz) and small size (500 µm²) has been fabricated on the same chip with a standard 2-µm CMOS, without degrading the device characteristics of the MOSFET. Latchup immunity is improved due to the low well resistance of the buried layer. The well triggering current is a 0.5-1.0 order of magnitude higher than that of a standard n-well CMOS. To evaluate the utility of this technology, a 15-stage ring oscillator of the 2NAND BiCMOS gate is fabricated. The gate has a 0.71-ns propagation delay time and 0.25-mW power dissipation at 0.85-pF loading capacitance and 4-MHz operation. Drive ability is 0.24 ns/pF, which is 2.5 times larger than that of the equal-area CMOS gate.     

A 16-Mbit DRAM with a relaxed sense-amplifier-pitch open-bit-linearchitecture

A 16-Mb dynamic RAM has been designed and fabricated using 0.5-μm CMOS technology with double-level metallization. It uses a novel trench-type surrounding high-capacitance cell (SCC) that measures only 3.3-μm² in cell size with a 63-fF storage capacitance. A novel relaxed sense-amplifier-pitch (RSAP) open-bit-line architecture used on the DRAM achieves a high-density memory cell array, while maintaining a large enough layout pitch for the sense amplifier. These concepts allow the small chip that measures 5.4×17.38 (93.85) mm² to be mounted in a 300-mil dual-in-line package with 65-ns RAS access time and 35-ns column address access time     

13-ns, 500-mW, 64-kbit ECL RAM using Hi-BiCMOS technology

The development is discussed for a 13-ns, 500-mW, 16K word/spl times/4-bit emitter-coupled logic (ECL) RAM using high-performance bipolar CMOS (Hi-BiCMOS) technology that combines a bipolar and a CMOS device on the same chip. The power dissipation of the RAM is about one half that of the conventional 64-kb bipolar ECL RAM. This high-speed, low-power RAM has been realized through a concept of a MOS-type memory cell, bipolar circuits, and a CMOS combination gate to allow for increased LSI integration.     

A 60-ns 16-Mb flash EEPROM with program and erase sequencecontroller

An erase and program control system has been implemented in a 60-ns 16-Mb flash EEPROM. The memory array is divided into 64 blocks, in each block, erase pulse application and erase-verify operation are employed individually. The erase and program sequence is controlled by an internal sequence controller composed of a synchronous circuit with an on-chip oscillator. A 60-ns access time has been achieved with a differential sensing scheme utilizing dummy cells. A cell size of 1.8 μm×2.0 μm and a chip size of 6.5 mm×18.4 mm were achieved using a simple stacked gate cell structure and 0.6-μm CMOS process     

The twin-transistor noise-tolerant dynamic circuit technique

This paper describes a new circuit technique for designing noise-tolerant dynamic logic. It is shown that voltage scaling aggravates the crosstalk noise problem and reduces circuit noise immunity, motivating the need for noise-tolerant circuit design. In a 0.35-μm CMOS technology and at a given supply voltage, the proposed technique provides an improvement in noise immunity of 1.8×(for an AND gate) and 2.5×(for an adder carry chain) over domino at the same speed. A multiply-accumulate circuit has been designed and fabricated using a 0.35-μm process to verify this technique. Experimental results indicate that the proposed technique provides a significant improvement in the noise immunity of dynamic circuits (>2.4x) with only a modest increase in power dissipation (15%) and no loss in throughput     

A circuit technology for high-speed battery-operated 16-Mb CMOSDRAM's

A battery-operated 16-Mb CMOS DRAM with address multiplexing has been developed by using an existing 0.5-μm CMOS technology. It can access data in 36 ns when powered from a 1.8-V battery-source, and 20 ns at 3.3 V. However, this device requires a mere 57 mA of operating current for an 80-ns cycle time and only 5 μA of standby current at 3.3 V. To achieve both high-speed and low-power operation, the following four circuit techniques have been developed: 1) a parallel column access redundancy (PCAR) scheme coupled with a current sensing address comparator (CSAC), 2) an N&PMOS cross-coupled read-bus-amplifier (NPCA), 3) a gate isolated sense amplifier (GISA) with low V_T, and 4) a layout that minimizes the length of the signal path by employing the lead on chip (LOC) assembly technique     

A 3.8-ns CMOS 16×16-b multiplier using complementarypass-transistor logic

A 3.8-ns, 257-mW, 16×16-b CMOS multiplier with a supply voltage of 4 V is described. A complementary pass-transistor logic (CPL) is proposed and applied to almost the entire critical path. The CPL consists of complementary inputs/outputs, an nMOS pass-transistor logic network, and CMOS output inverters. The CPL is twice as fast as conventional CMOS due to lower input capacitance and high logic functionality. Its multiplication time is the fastest ever reported, even for bipolar and GaAs ICs, and it can be enhanced further to 2.6 ns with 60 mW at 77 K     

A subnanosecond 8K-gate CMOS/SOS gate array

An 8370-gate CMOS/SOS gate array has been developed using a Si-gate CMOS/SOS process with two-level metallization. The gate lengths of the transistors are 1.8 and 1.9 /spl mu/m for the n-channel and p-channel, respectively. Subnanosecond typical gate delay times have been obtained. Typical delay times of inverter, two-input NAND, and two-input NOR gates are 0.67, 0.87, and 0.99 ns, respectively, under a typical loading condition (three fan outs and 2 mm first metal). It is shown that ECL speed with CMOS power can be achieved in a system by using the CMOS/SOS gate array. Advantages of the SOS device on speed performance are also discussed.     

High-performance CMOS circuits fabricated by excimer-laser-annealedpoly-Si TFTs on glass substrates

High-performance CMOS circuits are fabricated from excimer-laser-annealed poly-Si TFTs on a glass substrate (300×300 mm). The propagation delay time of the 121 stage CMOS ring oscillators with 0.5 μm gate length is 0.18 nsec at 5 V supply voltage. The maximum operating frequency of the 40-stage shift registers with 1 μm gate length is 133 MHz at 5 V supply voltage. This value is high enough for peripheral CMOS circuits with line-at-a-time addressing