The design and characterization of a half-volt 32 nm dual-read 6T SRAM

Dual read port 6-transistor (6T) SRAMs play a critical role in high-performance cache designs thanks to doubling of access bandwidth, but stability and sensing challenges typically limit the low-voltage operation. We report a high-performance dual read port 8-way set associative 6T SRAM with a one clock cycle access latency, in a 32 nm metal-gate partially depleted SOI process technology, for low-voltage applications. Hardware exhibits a robust operation at 348 MHz and 0.5 V with a read and write power of 3.33 and 1.97 mW, respectively, per 4.5 KB active array when both read ports are accessed at the highest switching activity data pattern. At a 0.6 V supply, an access speed of 1.2 GHz is observed. © 2011 IEEE.