In this paper, a compact and low-power true single-phase flip-flop (FF) design with fully static operations is presented. The design is developed by using various circuit-reduction schemes and features a hybrid logic style employing both pass transistor logic (PTL) and static complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) logic to reduce circuit complexity. These circuit optimization measures pay off in various aspects, including smaller clock-to-Q (CQ) delay, lower average power, lower leakage power, and smaller layout area; and the transistor-count is only 17. Fabricated in TSMC 180 nm CMOS technology, it reduces by over 29% the chip area compared to the conventional transmission gate FF (TGFF). To further show digital circuit/system level advantages, a multi-mode shift register has been realized. Experimental measurement results at 1.8 V/4 MHz show that, compared with the TGFF design, the proposed design saves 64.7% of power consumption while reducing chip area by 26.2%.

The conventional shift register consists of master and slave (MS) latches with each latch receiving the data from the previous stage. Therefore, the same data are stored in two latches separately. It leads to consuming more electrical power and occupying more layout area, which is not satisfactory to most circuit designers. To solve this issue, a novel cross-latch shift register (CLSR) scheme is proposed. It significantly reduced the number of transistors needed for a 256-bit shifter register by 48.33% as compared with the conventional MS latch design. To further verify its functions, this CLSR was implemented by using TSMC 40 nm CMOS process standard technology. The simulation results reveal that the proposed CLSR reduced the average power consumption by 36%, cut the leakage power by 60.53%, and eliminated layout area by 34.76% at a supply voltage of 0.9 V with an operating frequency of 250 MHz, as compared with the MS latch.

To incur the memory interface and faster access of static RAM for near-threshold operation, a stable local bit-line static random-access memory (SRAM) architecture has been proposed along with the low-voltage pre-charged and negative local bit-line (NLBL) scheme. In addition to the low-voltage pre-charged and NLBL scheme being operated by the write bit-line column to work out for the write half-select condition. The proposed local bit-line SRAM design reduces variations and enhances the read stability, the write capacity, prevents the bit-line leakage current, and the designed pre-charged circuit has achieved an optimal pre-charge voltage during the near-threshold operation. Compared to the conventional 6 T SRAM design, the optimal pre-charge voltage has been improved up to 15% for the read static noise margin (RSNM) and the write delay enriched up to 22% for the proposed NLBL SRAM design which is energy-efficient. At 400 mV supply voltage and 25 MHz operating frequency, the read and write energy consumption is 0.22 pJ and 0.23 pJ respectively. After comparing with the related works, the access average energy (AAE) is lower than in other works. The overall performance for the proposed local bit-line SRAM has achieved the highest figure of merit (FoM). The designed architecture has been implemented based on the 1-Kb SRAM macros and TSMC−40 nm GP process technology.

In this paper, we have systematically investigated the factors for performance enhancement on sub-32nm CMOS technology. We report that PMOS gains the drive current by slim spacer, S/D silicide resistance reduction by e-SiGe, and compressive CESL. The three factors improve the PMOS performance by 7%, 10% and 25% respectively. Combined with the three factors can gain the device drive current 30%. In addition, the optimized integration scheme can reduce NMOS extension resistance. The main cause is that post e-SiGe clean processes would loss the extension dopant and increases the extension resistance. We successfully reduce the NMOS total resistance 22% compared to control without compromise PMOS device performance.

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An innovative and stable PNN based 10-transistor (10T) static random-access memory (SRAM) architecture has been designed for low-power bit-cell operation and sub-threshold voltage applications. The proposed design belongs to the following features: (a) pulse control based read-assist circuit offers a dynamic read decoupling approach for eliminating the read interference; (b) we have utilized the write data-aware techniques to cut off the pull-down path; and (c) additional write current has enhanced the write capability during the operation. The proposed design not only solves the half-selected problems and increases the read static noise margin (RSNM) but also provides low leakage power performance. The designed architecture of 1-Kb SRAM macros (32 rows × 32 columns) has been implemented based on the TSMC-40 nm GP CMOS process technology. At 300 mV supply voltage and 10 MHz operating frequency, the read and write power consumption is 4.15 μW and 3.82 μW, while the average energy consumption is only 0.39 pJ.