A ReRAM-Based Non-Volatile and Radiation-Hardened Latch Design

Area of Science:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Computer Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• High reliability and low power consumption are critical for aerospace integrated circuits.
• Power down operations are essential for reducing chip power consumption.
• Non-volatile (NV) latches are needed to retain circuit states during power down.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel non-volatile (NV) latch based on resistive random-access memories (ReRAMs).
• To develop an NV-latch that is radiation-hardened for aerospace environments.
• To achieve low overhead and robust state retention after power down operations.

Main Methods:

• Design and simulation of a ReRAM-based NV-latch.
• Integration of radiation hardening techniques.
• Evaluation of performance under power down and radiation exposure scenarios.

Main Results:

• The proposed NV-latch demonstrates complete radiation hardening against single-event upsets (SEUs).
• The latch successfully restores circuit values after power down operations.
• The ReRAM-based NV-latch reduces transistor count in storage cells by an average of 50% compared to similar solutions.

Conclusions:

• The ReRAM-based NV-latch provides a viable solution for non-volatile and radiation-hardened applications in aerospace.
• The design offers significant advantages in terms of power reduction, reliability, and transistor count.
• This technology contributes to enhanced performance and longevity of electronic systems in harsh environments.