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One-Step Sneak-Path Free Read Scheme for Resistive Crossbar Memory

Published: 03 February 2017 Publication History

Abstract

A one-step sneak-path free read scheme for resistive crossbar memory is proposed in this article. During read operation, it configures the crossbar array into a four-terminal resistance network, which is composed of the selected cell and three other resistors corresponding to unselected cells that contribute to the sneak-path. Two sensing voltages with equal potential are applied to three terminals of the network. One is for sensing the resistance of the selected cell; the other is for creating zero-voltage drop across one of the three resistors, which connects the sneak-path to the selected cell. This effectively suppresses the current injected by the sneak-path to the selected cell-sensing loop. This work also proposes a cost-effective data-encoding circuit that guarantees that at least half of the memory cells are in a high-resistance state, which further minimizes sneak-path current. The impact of key design parameters, such as sensing voltage, switch on-resistance, and the ratio of memory cell resistances in different states, as well as nonideal effects are investigated. Equations for estimating the maximum array size to share a single read circuit are derived. The effectiveness of the proposed design has been validated via circuit simulations. Impacts of the word-/bit-line resistance are also analyzed.

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  • (2021)BDD-based synthesis approach for in-memory logic realization utilizing Memristor Aided loGIC (MAGIC)Integration10.1016/j.vlsi.2021.08.002Online publication date: Aug-2021
  • (2018)In-memory designing of Delay and Toggle flip-flops utilizing Memristor Aided loGIC (MAGIC)Integration10.1016/j.vlsi.2018.12.005Online publication date: Dec-2018

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Published In

cover image ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems
ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems  Volume 13, Issue 2
Special Issue on Nanoelectronic Circuit and System Design Methods for the Mobile Computing Era and Regular Papers
April 2017
377 pages
ISSN:1550-4832
EISSN:1550-4840
DOI:10.1145/3014160
  • Editor:
  • Yuan Xie
Issue’s Table of Contents
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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Publication History

Published: 03 February 2017
Accepted: 01 October 2016
Revised: 01 June 2016
Received: 01 March 2016
Published in JETC Volume 13, Issue 2

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Author Tags

  1. Sneak-path
  2. crossbar array
  3. read scheme
  4. resistive memory

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  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed

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  • Guangdong Province Science and Technology Program
  • Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

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View all
  • (2021)BDD-based synthesis approach for in-memory logic realization utilizing Memristor Aided loGIC (MAGIC)Integration10.1016/j.vlsi.2021.08.002Online publication date: Aug-2021
  • (2018)In-memory designing of Delay and Toggle flip-flops utilizing Memristor Aided loGIC (MAGIC)Integration10.1016/j.vlsi.2018.12.005Online publication date: Dec-2018

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