A 5-MHz, 3.6-mW, 1.4-V SRAM with nonboosted, vertical bipolarbit-line contact memory cell

This paper describes a 256-Kbit SRAM fabricated using a novel bipolar bit-line contact memory cell having a large static noise margin. Vertical PNP transistors are introduced at the bit-line contact area, which realizes lower operational voltage and a memory-cell area equivalent to a 4-NMOS-type cell. The minimum operating voltage is 1.4 V without using a boosting technique, and the access time is 60 ns at a V _cc of 1.8 V and room temperature. The power dissipation is 3.6 mW at a V_cc of 1.4 V. The operating V_cc range is 1.4-4.0 V     

A 550-ps access 900-MHz 1-Mb ECL-CMOS SRAM

An ultrahigh-speed 1-Mb emitter-coupled logic (ECL)-CMOS SRAM with 550-ps clock-access time, 900-MHz operating frequency, and 12-μm² memory cells has been developed using 0.2-μm BiCMOS technology. Three key techniques for achieving the ultrahigh speed are a BiCMOS word decoder/driver with an nMOS level-shift circuit, a sense amplifier with a voltage-clamp circuit, and a BiCMOS write circuit with a variable-impedance bitline load. The proposed word decoder/driver and sense amplifier can reduce the delay times of the circuits to 54% and 53% of those of conventional circuits. The BiCMOS write circuit can reduce the power dissipation of the circuit by 74% without sacrificing writing speed. These techniques are especially useful for realizing ultrahigh-spaced high-density SRAMs, which will be used as cache and control memories in mainframe computers     

A 0.5-V 25-MHz 1-mW 256-kb MTCMOS/SOI SRAM for solar-power-operated portable personal digital equipment - sure write operation by using step-down negatively overdriven bitline scheme

Multithreshold-voltage CMOS (MTCMOS) technology has a great advantage in that it provides high-speed operation with low supply voltages of less than 1 V. A logic gate with low-V/sub th/ MOSFETs has a high operating speed, while a low-leakage power switch with a high-V/sub th/ MOSFET eliminates the off-leakage current during sleep time. By using MTCMOS circuits and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) devices, the authors have developed a 256-kb SRAM for solar-power-operated digital equipment. A double-threshold-voltage MOSFET (DTMOS) is adopted for the power switch to further reduce the off leakage. As regards the SRAM core design, we consider a hybrid configuration consisting of high-V/sub th/ and low-V/sub th/ MOSFETs (that is, multi-V/sub th/ CMOS). A new memory cell with a separate read-data path provides a larger readout current without degrading the static noise margin. A negatively overdriven bitline scheme guarantees sure write operation at ultralow supply voltages close to 0.5 V. In addition, a charge-transfer amplifier integrated with a selector and data latches for intrabus circuitry are installed to enhance the operating speed and/or reduce power dissipation. A 32K-word /spl times/ 8-bit SRAM chip, fabricated with the 0.35-/spl mu/m multi-V/sub th/ CMOS/SOI process, has successfully operated at 25 MHz under typical conditions with 0.5-V (SRAM core) and 1-V (I/O buffers) power supplies. The power dissipation during sleep time is less than 0.4 /spl mu/W and that for 25-MHz operation is 1 mW, excluding that of the I/O buffers.     

A 7-ns 140-mW 1-Mb CMOS SRAM with current sense amplifier

A 7-ns 140-mW 1-Mb CMOS SRAM was developed to provide fast access and low power dissipation by using high-speed circuits for a 3-V power supply: a current-sense amplifier and pre-output buffer. The current-sense amplifier shows three times the gain of a conventional voltage-sense amplifier and saves 60% of power dissipation while maintaining a very short sensing delay. The pre-output buffer reduces output delays by 0.5 ns to 0.75 ns. The 6.6-μm² high-density memory cell uses a parallel transistor layout and phase-shifting photolithography. The critical charge that brings about soft error in a memory cell can be drastically increased by adjusting the resistances of poly-PMOS gate electrodes. This can be done without increasing process complexity or memory cell area. The 1-Mb SRAM was fabricated using 0.3-μm CMOS quadrupole-poly and double-metal technology. The chip measures 3.96 mm×7.4 mm (29 mm²)     

A 6-ns, 1.5-V, 4-Mb BiCMOS SRAM

A 0.3-μm 4-Mb BiCMOS SRAM with a 6-ns access time at a minimum supply voltage of 1.5 V has been developed. Circuit technologies contributing to the low-voltage, high-speed operations include: (1) boost-BiNMOS gates for address decoding circuits; (2) an optimized word-boost technique for a highly-resistive-load memory cell; (3) a stepped-down CML cascoded bipolar sense amplifier; (4) optimum boost-voltage detection circuits with dummies for boost-voltage generators     

A 21-mW 4-Mb CMOS SRAM for battery operation

The authors describe a 21-mW 4-mB CMOS SRAM for the application of memory systems which operate on 3-V batteries. A low active power is achieved by novel circuit technologies. A thin-film transistor (TFT) load memory cell effectively reduces standby current to 0.4 μA. A new multibit test circuit, which permits measurement of access time, is also introduced for a reduction of the test time. The authors describe the characteristics of the TFT memory cell and the improved memory cell design for stable cell operation. The 0.6-μm process technology used to fabricate the 4-Mb SRAM and the chip performance are outlined     

A 3.3-V 12-ns 16-Mb CMOS SRAM

A 16-Mb CMOS SRAM having an access time of 12 ns under a 3.3-V supply has been developed with a 0.4-μm process technology. An address access time of 12 ns has been achieved by an optimized architecture, the use of an automated transistor size optimizer, and a read-bus midlevel preset scheme (RBMIPS). For better yield and efficient testing, an on-chip test circuit with three test modes has been implemented     

A 1.8-ns access, 550-MHz, 4.5-Mb CMOS SRAM

An ultrahigh-speed 4.5-Mb CMOS SRAM with 1.8-ns clock-access time, 1.8-ns cycle time, and 9.84-μm² memory cells has been developed using 0.25-μm CMOS technology. Three key circuit techniques for achieving this high speed are a decoder using source-coupled-logic (SCL) circuits combined with reset circuits, a sense amplifier with nMOS source followers, and a sense-amplifier activation-pulse generator that uses a duplicate memory-cell array. The proposed decoder can reduce the delay time between the address input and the word-line signal of the 4.5-Mb SRAM to 68% of that of an SRAM with conventional circuits. The sense amplifier with nMOS source followers can reduce not only the delay time of the sense amplifier but also the power dissipation. In the SRAM, the sense-amplifier activation pulse must be input into the sense amplifier after the signal from the memory cell is input into the sense amplifier. A large timing margin required between these signals results in a large access time in the conventional SRAM. The sense-amplifier activation pulse generator that uses a duplicate memory-cell array can reduce the required timing margin to less than half of the conventional margin. These three techniques are especially useful for realizing ultrahigh-speed SRAM's, which will be used as on-chip or off-chip cache memories in processor systems     

1-V 100-MHz embedded SRAM techniques for battery-operatedMTCMOS/SIMOX ASICs

Multithreshold-voltage CMOS (MTCMOS) has a great advantage of lowering physical threshold voltages without increasing the power dissipation due to large subthreshold leakage currents. This paper presents the embedded SRAM techniques for high-speed low-power MTCMOS/SIMOX application-specified integrated circuits (ASICs) that are operated with a single battery cell of around 1 V. In order to increase SRAM operating frequency, a pseudo-two stage pipeline architecture is proposed. The address decoder using a pass-transistor-type NAND gate and a segmented power switch presents a short clocked wordline selection time. The large bitline delay in read operations is greatly shortened with a new memory cell using extra low-V_th nMOSs. The small readout signal from memory cells is detected with a high-speed MTCMOS sense amplifier, in which a pMOS bitline selector is merged. The wasted power dissipation in writing data is reduced to zero with a self-timed writing action. A 8 K-words×16-bits SRAM test chip, fabricated with a 0.35-μm MTCMOS/SIMOX process (shortened effective channel length of 0.17 μm is available), has demonstrated a 100-MHz operation under the worst power-supply condition of 1 V. At a typical 1.2 V, the power dissipation during the standby time is 0.2-μW and that of a 100-MHz operation with a checkerboard test pattern is 14 mW for single fan-in loads     

A 1.2-V 1.5-Gb/s 72-Mb DDR3 SRAM

A 1.2-V 72-Mb double data rate 3 (DDR3) SRAM achieves a data rate of 1.5 Gb/s using dynamic self-resetting circuits. Single-ended main data lines halve the data line precharging power dissipation and the number of data lines. Clocks phase shifted by 0/spl deg/, 90/spl deg/, and 270/spl deg/ are generated through the proposed clock adjustment circuits. The latter circuits make input data sampled with an optimized setup/hold window. On-chip input termination with a linearity error of /spl plusmn/4.1% is developed to improve signal integrity at higher data rates. A 1.2-V 1.5-Gb/s 72-Mb DDR3 SRAM is fabricated in a 0.10-/spl mu/m CMOS process with five metals. The cell size and the chip size are 0.845 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and 151.1 mm/sup 2/, respectively.     

A 10-b 150-MSample/s 1.8-V 123-mW CMOS A/D converter with 400-MHz input bandwidth

This work describes a 10-b 150-MSample/s 4-b-per-stage single-channel CMOS pipelined ADC incorporating improved gate-bootstrapping techniques for a wideband SHA and temperature- and supply-insensitive CMOS references. The proposed ADC is designed and fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m one-poly six-metal CMOS technology. The measured differential and integral nonlinearities are within 0.69 LSB and 1.50 LSB, respectively. The prototype ADC shows a peak signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) of 52 dB at 150 MSample/s. The ADC maintains the SNDR over 52 dB and 43 dB, respectively, for input frequencies up to the Nyquist frequency and 400 MHz at 140 MSample/s. The active die area is 2.2 mm/sup 2/ and the chip consumes 123 mW at 150 MSample/s.     

A 1-V, 100-MHz, 10-mW cache using a separated bit-line memoryhierarchy architecture and domino tag comparators

A 1-V 16-KB (L2) 2-KB (L1) four-way set-associative cache was fabricated using a 0.25-μm CMOS technology for future low-power high-speed microprocessors. Effective latency of 6.9 ns and power consumption of 10 mW at 100 MHz are obtained at a supply voltage of 1 V. This performance is achieved by using a new separated bit-line memory hierarchy architecture (SBMHA) that speeds up latency and reduces power consumption, and domino tag comparators (DTC's) that reduce the power dissipation of tag comparisons     

A 16-Mb 400-MHz loadless CMOS four-transistor SRAM macro

We have used a 5-metal 0.18-μm CMOS logic process to develop a 16-Mb 400-MHz loadless CMOS four-transistor SRAM macro. The macro contains: (1) end-point dual-pulse drivers for accurate timing control; (2) a wordline-voltage-level compensation circuit for stable data retention; and (3) an all-adjoining twisted bitline scheme for reduced bitline coupling capacitance. The macro is capable of 400-MHz high-speed access at 1.8-V supply voltage and is 66% the size of a conventional six-transistor SRAM macro. We have also developed a higher-performance 500-MHz loadless four-transistor SRAM macro in a CMOS process using 0.13-μm gate length     

A 220-MHz pipelined 16-Mb BiCMOS SRAM with PLL proportionalself-timing generator

This 512 Kw×8 b×3 way synchronous BiCMOS SRAM uses a 2-stage wave-pipeline scheme, a PLL self-timing generator and a 0.4-μm BiCMOS process to achieve 220 MHz fully-random read/write operations with a GTL I/O interface. Newly developed circuit technologies include: 1) a zig-zag double word-line scheme, 2) a centered bit-line load layout scheme, and 3) a phase-locked-loop (PLL) with a multistage-tapped ring oscillator which generates a clock cycle proportional pulse (CCPP) and a clock edge lookahead pulse (CELP)     

A 1-V 3.5-mW CMOS switched-opamp quadrature IF circuitry for Bluetooth receivers

A 1-V switched-capacitor (SC) quadrature IF circuitry for Bluetooth receivers is demonstrated using switched-opamp technique. To achieve double power efficiency while maintaining low sensitivity to finite opamp gain effects for the SC IF circuitry, half-delay integrator-based filters and /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator have been proposed. The proposed quadrature IF circuitry employs a seventh-order IF filter for channel selection and a third-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator for analog-to-digital conversion. A noise-shaping extension technique is employed to enhance the resolution of the low-pass /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator by 16 dB while operating at the same oversampling ratio and power consumption. At a 1-V supply, the quadrature IF circuitry achieves a measured IIP3 of -3 dBm at a nominal gain of 24 dB with a 48-dB variable gain control while consuming a total power dissipation of 3.5 mW.     

A 0.5-V MTCMOS/SIMOX logic gate

This paper proposes a multithreshold CMOS (MTCMOS) circuit that uses SIMOX process technology. This MTCMOS/SIMOX circuit combines fully depleted low-threshold CMOS logic gates and partially depleted high-threshold power-switch transistors. The low-threshold CMOS gates have a large noise margin for fluctuations in operating temperature in addition to high-speed operation at the low supply voltage of 0.5 V. The high-threshold power-switch transistor in which the body is connected to the gate through the reverse-diode makes it possible to obtain large channel conductance in the active mode without any increase of the leakage current in the sleep mode. The effectiveness of the MTCMOS/SIMOX circuit is confirmed by an evaluation of a gate-chain test element group (TEG) and an experimental 0.5-V, 40-MHz, 16-b ALU, which were designed and fabricated with 0.25-μm MTCMOS/SIMOX technology     

A 60-MHz 240-mW MPEG-4 videophone LSI with 16-Mb embedded DRAM

A 240-mW single-chip MPEG-4 videophone LSI with a 16-Mb embedded DRAM is fabricated utilizing a 0.25-μm CMOS triple-well quad-metal technology. The videophone LSI is applied to the 3GPP 3G-324M video-telephony standard for IMT-2000, and implements the MPEG-4 video SPL1 codec, the AMR speech codec, and the ITU-T H.223 Annex B multiplexing/demultiplexing at the same time. Three 16-bit multimedia-extended RISC processors, dedicated hardware accelerators, and a 16-Mb embedded DRAM are integrated on a 10.84 mm×10.84 mm die. It also integrates camera, display, audio, and network interfaces required for a mobile video-phone terminal. In addition to conventional low-power techniques, such as clock gating and parallel operation, some new low-power techniques are also employed. These include an embedded DRAM with optimized configuration, a low-power motion estimator, and the adoption of the variable-threshold voltage CMOS (VT-CMOS). The MPEG-4 videophone LSI consumes 240 mW at 60 MHz, which is only 22% of that for a conventional multichip design. Variable threshold voltage CMOS reduces standby leakage current to 26 μA, which is only 17% of that for the conventional CMOS design     

Design of a 100-MHz 10-mW 3-V sample-and-hold amplifier in digitalbipolar technology

This paper describes the design of an all-npn open-loop sample-and-hold amplifier intended for use at the front end of analog-to-digital converters. Configured as a quasidifferential topology, the circuit employs capacitive coupling between the input and output to achieve differential voltage swings of 3 V in a 3.3-V system. It also exploits the high speed of bipolar transistors to attain a sampling rate of 100 MHz with a power dissipation of 10 mW. A prototype fabricated in a 1.5-μm 12-GHz digital bipolar technology exhibits harmonics 60 dB below the fundamental with a 10-MHz sinusoidal input. The hold-mode feedthrough is less than -60 dB and the droop rate is 100 μV/ns     

A 2-Mb/s 256-state 10-mW rate-1/3 Viterbi decoder

This paper presents a low-power bit-serial Viterbi decoder chip with the code rate r=1/3 and the constraint length K=9 (256 states) for next generation wireless communication applications. The architecture of the add-compare-select (ACS) module is based on the bit-serial arithmetic and implemented with the pass transistor logic circuit. A cluster-based ACS placement and state metric routing topology is described for the 256 bit-serial ACS units, which achieves very high area efficiency. In the trace-back operation, a power efficient trace-back scheme, allowing higher memory read access rate than memory write in a time-multiplexing method, is implemented to reduce the number of iterations required to generate a decoded output. In addition, a low-power application-specific memory suitable for the function of survivor path memory has also been developed. The chip's core, implemented using 0.5-μm CMOS technology, contains approximately 200 K transistors and occupies 2.46 mm by 4.17 mm area. This chip can achieve the decode rate of 20 Mb/s under 3.3 V and 2 Mb/s under 1.8 V. The measured power dissipation at 2 Mb/s under 1.8 V is only about 9.8 mW. The Viterbi decoder presented here can be applied to next generation wide-band code division multiple access (W-CDMA) systems     

A 110-MHz/1-Mb synchronous TagRAM

A 4-way set associative TagRAM with 1.189-Mb capacity has been developed which can handle a secondary cache system of up to 16 Mbytes. A 9-ns cycle operation and clock to D_out of 4.7 ns are achieved by use of circuit techniques such as a pipelined decoding scheme, a single PMOS load BiCMOS main decoder, a BiCMOS sense-amplifying comparator, doubly placed self-timed write circuits, and highly linear VCO for a PLL. The device is successfully implemented with 0.7-μm double polysilicon double-metal BiCMOS technology