2012 Volume E95.C Issue 5 Pages 854-859
In this paper, we propose a new low power nonvolatile counter unit based on Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) with fine-grained power gating. The proposed counter unit consists of only a single latch with two MTJs. We verify the basic operation and estimate the power consumption of the proposed counter unit. The operating power consumption of the proposed nonvolatile counter unit is smaller than the conventional one below 140kHz. The power of the proposed unit is 74.6% smaller than the conventional one at low frequency.