A 28-nm 320-Kb TCAM Macro Using Split-Controlled Single-Load 14T Cell and Triple-Margin Voltage Sense Amplifier

Ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) is limited by large cell area, high search power, significant active-mode leakage current, and a tradeoff between search speed and signal margin on the match-line (ML). In this paper, we developed a split-controlled single-load 14T (SCSL-14T) TCAM cell and a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of solid-state circuits 2019-10, Vol.54 (10), p.2743-2753
Main Authors: Xue, Cheng-Xin, Zhao, Wei-Cheng, Yang, Tzu-Hsien, Chen, Yi-Ju, Yamauchi, Hiroyuki, Chang, Meng-Fan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Associative memory
CMOS
Current leakage
Delay
Delays
Electric potential
Layout
Leakage current
Logic gates
Nonvolatile memory
Random access memory
Searching
Sense amplifier (SA)
Sense amplifiers
Sensors
SRAM
ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM)
Transistors
Voltage
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Summary:Ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) is limited by large cell area, high search power, significant active-mode leakage current, and a tradeoff between search speed and signal margin on the match-line (ML). In this paper, we developed a split-controlled single-load 14T (SCSL-14T) TCAM cell and a triple-margin voltage sense amplifier (TM-VSA) to achieve the following: 1) compact cell area; 2) lower search delay and search energy; 3) reduced current leakage in standby and active modes; and 4) tolerance for small sensing margin. A testchip with 320-Kb 14T-TCAM macro was fabricated using a 28-nm CMOS logic process and modified compact foundry six-transistor (6T) cell. The proposed macro achieved search delay of only 710 ps and 0.422 fJ/bit/search.
ISSN:0018-9200
1558-173X
DOI:10.1109/JSSC.2019.2915577