Ultra-low voltage large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs) in nano-scale technologies are needed both to meet the needs of a rapidly growing mobile cell phone market and to offset a significant increase in the power dissipation of high-end microprocessor units. The goal of this book is to provide a detailed explanation of the state-of-the-art nanometer and sub-1-V memory LSIs that are playing decisive roles in power conscious systems. Emerging problems between the device, circuit, and system levels are systematically discussed in terms of reliable high-speed operations of memory cells and peripheral logic circuits. The effectiveness of solutions at device and circuit levels is also described at length through clarifying noise components in an array, and even essential differences in ultra-low voltage operations between DRAMs and SRAMs.

Power consumption is a key limitation in many high-speed and high-data-rate electronic systems today, ranging from mobile telecom to portable and desktop computing systems, especially when moving to nanometer technologies. Ultra Low-Power Electronics and Design offers to the reader the unique opportunity of accessing in an easy and integrated fashion a mix of tutorial material and advanced research results, contributed by leading scientists from academia and industry, covering the most hot and up-to-date issues in the field of the design of ultra low-power devices, systems and applications.

This book presents the latest techniques for characterization, modeling and design for nano-scale non-volatile memory (NVM) devices. Coverage focuses on fundamental NVM device fabrication and characterization, internal state identification of memristic dynamics with physics modeling, NVM circuit design and hybrid NVM memory system design-space optimization. The authors discuss design methodologies for nano-scale NVM devices from a circuits/systems perspective, including the general foundations for the fundamental memristic dynamics in NVM devices. Coverage includes physical modeling, as well as the development of a platform to explore novel hybrid CMOS and NVM circuit and system design. • Offers readers a systematic and comprehensive treatment of emerging nano-scale non-volatile memory (NVM) devices; • Focuses on the internal state of NVM memristic dynamics, novel NVM readout and memory cell circuit design and hybrid NVM memory system optimization; • Provides both theoretical analysis and practical examples to illustrate design methodologies; • Illustrates design and analysis for recent developments in spin-toque-transfer, domain-wall racetrack and memristors.

Knowledge exists: you only have to ?nd it VLSI design has come to an important in?ection point with the appearance of large manufacturing variations as semiconductor technology has moved to 45 nm feature sizes and below. If we ignore the random variations in the manufacturing process, simulation-based design essentially becomes useless, since its predictions will be far from the reality of manufactured ICs. On the other hand, using design margins based on some traditional notion of worst-case scenarios can force us to sacri?ce too much in terms of power consumption or manufacturing cost, to the extent of making the design goals even infeasible. We absolutely need to explicitly account for the statistics of this random variability, to have design margins that are accurate so that we can ?nd the optimum balance between yield loss and design cost. This discontinuity in design processes has led many researchers to develop effective methods of statistical design, where the designer can simulate not just the behavior of the nominal design, but the expected statistics of the behavior in manufactured ICs. Memory circuits tend to be the hardest hit by the problem of these random variations because of their high replication count on any single chip, which demands a very high statistical quality from the product. Requirements of 5–6s (0.

Kevin Zhang Advancement of semiconductor technology has driven the rapid growth of very large scale integrated (VLSI) systems for increasingly broad applications, incl- ing high-end and mobile computing, consumer electronics such as 3D gaming, multi-function or smart phone, and various set-top players and ubiquitous sensor and medical devices. To meet the increasing demand for higher performance and lower power consumption in many different system applications, it is often required to have a large amount of on-die or embedded memory to support the need of data bandwidth in a system. The varieties of embedded memory in a given system have alsobecome increasingly more complex, ranging fromstatictodynamic and volatile to nonvolatile. Among embedded memories, six-transistor (6T)-based static random access memory (SRAM) continues to play a pivotal role in nearly all VLSI systems due to its superior speed and full compatibility with logic process technology. But as the technology scaling continues, SRAM design is facing severe challenge in mainta- ing suf?cient cell stability margin under relentless area scaling. Meanwhile, rapid expansion in mobile application, including new emerging application in sensor and medical devices, requires far more aggressive voltage scaling to meet very str- gent power constraint. Many innovative circuit topologies and techniques have been extensively explored in recent years to address these challenges.

Design considerations for low-power operations and robustness with respect to variations typically impose contradictory requirements. Low-power design techniques such as voltage scaling, dual-threshold assignment and gate sizing can have large negative impact on parametric yield under process variations. This book focuses on circuit/architectural design techniques for achieving low power operation under parameter variations. We consider both logic and memory design aspects and cover modeling and analysis, as well as design methodology to achieve simultaneously low power and variation tolerance, while minimizing design overhead. This book will discuss current industrial practices and emerging challenges at future technology nodes.

This book walks the reader through all the aspects of manufacturability and yield in a nano-CMOS process. It covers all CAD/CAE aspects of a SOC design flow and addresses a new topic (DFM/DFY) critical at 90 nm and beyond. This book is a must read book the serious practicing IC designer and an excellent primer for any graduate student intent on having a career in IC design or in EDA tool development.