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Future cache design using STT MRAMs for improved energy efficiency: devices, circuits and architecture

Published: 03 June 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Spin-transfer torque magnetic RAM (STT MRAM) has emerged as a promising candidate for on-chip memory in future computing platforms. We present a cross-layer (device-circuit-architecture) approach to energy-efficient cache design using STT MRAM. At the device and circuit levels, we consider different genres of MTJs and bitcells, and evaluate their impact on the area, energy and performance of caches. In addition, we propose micro-architectural techniques viz. sequential cache read and partial cache line update, which exploit the non-volatility of STT MRAM to further improve energy efficiency of STT MRAM caches. A detailed comparison of STT MRAM caches with SRAM-based caches is also presented. Our results indicate that the proposed optimizations significantly enhance the efficiency of STT MRAM for designing lower level caches.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    DAC '12: Proceedings of the 49th Annual Design Automation Conference
    June 2012
    1357 pages
    ISBN:9781450311991
    DOI:10.1145/2228360
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 03 June 2012

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    Author Tags

    1. STT MRAM
    2. cache
    3. emerging devices
    4. memory
    5. spin

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    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)POEM: Performance Optimization and Endurance Management for Non-volatile CachesACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems10.1145/365345229:5(1-36)Online publication date: 27-Mar-2024
    • (2023)SweepCache: Intermittence-Aware Cache on the CheapProceedings of the 56th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture10.1145/3613424.3623781(1059-1074)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2023
    • (2023)Piezoelectric Strain FET (PeFET)-Based Nonvolatile MemoriesIEEE Transactions on Electron Devices10.1109/TED.2023.327084570:6(3076-3084)Online publication date: Jun-2023
    • (2023)Design principles for lifelong learning AI acceleratorsNature Electronics10.1038/s41928-023-01054-36:11(807-822)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2023
    • (2022)High-Density 1R/1W Dual-Port Spin-Transfer Torque MRAMMicromachines10.3390/mi1312222413:12(2224)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2022
    • (2022)Near-memory Computing on FPGAs with 3D-stacked Memories: Applications, Architectures, and OptimizationsACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems10.1145/354765816:1(1-32)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2022
    • (2022)Approximate MRAM: High-performance and Power-efficient Computing with MRAM Chips for Error-tolerant ApplicationsIEEE Transactions on Computers10.1109/TC.2022.3174584(1-1)Online publication date: 2022
    • (2021)ReplayCache: Enabling Volatile Cachesfor Energy Harvesting SystemsMICRO-54: 54th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture10.1145/3466752.3480102(170-182)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
    • (2021)DOVA PRO: A Dynamic Overwriting Voltage Adjustment Technique for STT-MRAM L1 Cache Considering Dielectric Breakdown EffectIEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems10.1109/TVLSI.2021.307341529:7(1325-1334)Online publication date: Jul-2021
    • (2021)Magnetoresistive Circuits and Systems: Embedded Non-Volatile Memory to Crossbar ArraysIEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers10.1109/TCSI.2021.306968268:6(2281-2294)Online publication date: Jun-2021
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