FeMPIM: A FeFET-Based Multifunctional Processing-in-Memory Cell

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems. II, Express briefs Vol. 71; no. 4; pp. 2299 - 2303
• Main Authors: Yan, Aibin, Chen, Yu, Gao, Zhongyu, Ni, Tianming, Huang, Zhengfeng, Cui, Jie, Girard, Patrick, Wen, Xiaoqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.04.2024; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Arrays; Associative memory; CMOS; Computer architecture; Data transfer (computers); FeFETs; Ferroelectric field-effect transistor; Ferroelectricity; Field effect transistors; Microprocessors; Nonvolatile memory; processing-in-memory; Semiconductor devices; ternary content-addressable memory; Transistors; Voltage
• ISSN: 1549-7747; 1558-3791
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSII.2023.3331267

The Von-Neumann memory wall bottleneck that keeps expanding is mainly caused by the frequent data transfer between the main memory and the processor. The processing in-memory (PiM) capabilities of emerging nonvolatile devices have the potential to partially alleviate the memory wall problem. In this brief, we use the ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET), one of the emerging nonvolatile devices, to design a multifunctional processing in-memory cell, namely FeMPIM. It can perform multiple logic operations in computing mode as well as content searching in ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) mode. Simulation results demonstrate the multifunctional capability of the proposed FeMPIM as well as its moderate overhead when compared with the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) based and the existing FeFET-based devices.