Gnoli Luca, Riente Fabrizio
Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politenico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, I-10129, Torino, Italy.
Nanotechnology. 2022 Feb 21;33(20). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac4dc2.
Content-addressable memories (CAMs) allow searching a pattern, processing in parallel all the data stored. Beyond-CMOS technologies can provide new opportunities to improve CAM memories implementations both at the device and architectural level. In this article, we propose a ternary content-addressable memory cell based on skyrmion technology. The proposed memory cell is based on skyrmion racetrack memory. The cell is able to signal if the bit contained in the cell in form of skyrmion corresponds to an electrical input, the target of the search operation. The proposed design, verified by means of micromagnetic simulations, has an area of 0.054mand can perform a search operation in 3.3 ns with an energy of 10.5 fJ. The operation performed is non-destructive and does not require conversion between the magnetic and the electronic domains. For this reason, the designed cell has the potential to be used as a basic block for non-volatile CAM memories. Here, we propose also a layout structure to implement a CAM memory employing the proposed cell. This structure allows to achieve memory density comparable to traditional racetrack memories and execute at the same time CAM operations.
内容可寻址存储器（CAM）允许搜索模式，并行处理存储的所有数据。超越互补金属氧化物半导体（Beyond-CMOS）技术可以在器件和架构层面为改进CAM存储器的实现提供新机遇。在本文中，我们提出了一种基于斯格明子（skyrmion）技术的三态内容可寻址存储单元。所提出的存储单元基于斯格明子赛道存储器。该单元能够以斯格明子形式发出信号，表明存储单元中包含的位是否与电输入（搜索操作的目标）相对应。通过微磁模拟验证的所提出设计，面积为0.054平方微米，能够在3.3纳秒内以10.5飞焦的能量执行搜索操作。所执行的操作是非破坏性的，并且不需要在磁域和电子域之间进行转换。因此，所设计的存储单元有潜力用作非易失性CAM存储器的基本模块。在此，我们还提出了一种布局结构，以采用所提出的存储单元来实现CAM存储器。这种结构能够实现与传统赛道存储器相当的存储密度，并同时执行CAM操作。
