2-write 3-read SRAM design using a 12-T storage cell
AssigneeNVIDIA Corporation
InventorsGe Yang, Hwong-Kwo (Hank) Lin, Charles Chew-Yuen Young
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a twelve transistor static random access memory storage cell that provides two write ports and three read ports. The write word line operates at twice the clock frequency. The write bit lines are differential to provide high-performance writes. Each read word line operates at the clock frequency. Single-ended read bit lines are used to provide read performance comparable to write performance. The resulting storage cell only requires four horizontal word lines and five vertical bit lines, enabling very dense, yet high-performance designs.
Claims21
A static random access memory (SRAM) storage cell, comprising:
- a first inverter and a second inverter configured to provide a cross-coupled latch;
- a first N-channel field-effect transistor (NFET) and a second NFET, each of which being configured to provide write access to the cross-coupled latch twice during a clock cycle;
- a third NFET and a fourth NFET configured to provide an inverted single-ended read access to the cross-coupled latch;
- and
- a fifth NFET and a sixth NFET configured to provide a non-inverted single-ended read access to the cross-coupled latch.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.