FeFET-Based Computing-in-Memory Unit Circuit and Its Application.

Area of Science:

• Semiconductor Devices
• Emerging Memory Technologies
• Digital Circuit Design

Background:

• Silicon complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology faces increasing challenges.
• Emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) and computing-in-memory (CiM) architectures are crucial for data-intensive computations.
• HfO2-doped ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) are a type of NVM utilized in CiM, but input form limitations hinder logic cascade.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel Vin-Vout CiM unit circuit for FeFET-based logic functions.
• To overcome the limitations of diverse input forms in FeFETs for CiM digital circuits.
• To demonstrate the feasibility and scalability of FeFETs in CiM logic operations.

Main Methods:

• Development of a Vin-Vout CiM unit circuit utilizing the built-in state of FeFET.
• Unification of logic input forms within the FeFET-based unit circuit.
• Design of basic logic gates and a Full Adder (FA) using the proposed unit circuit.

Main Results:

• The proposed unit circuit successfully unifies logic input forms for FeFETs.
• FeFETs were demonstrated as the core component for logic operations.
• Simulation results verified the feasibility and scalability of the FeFET-based unit circuit for CiM applications.

Conclusions:

• The proposed Vin-Vout CiM unit circuit effectively bridges logic input forms for FeFETs.
• FeFETs show significant potential for developing more efficient CiM circuits.
• The FeFET-based unit circuit design is scalable and applicable to complex logic functions.