Exploiting Read/Write Asymmetry to Achieve Opportunistic SRAM Voltage Switching in Dual-Supply Near-Threshold Processors

Abstract

Energy-efficient microprocessors are essential for a wide range of applications. While near-threshold computing is a promising technique to improve energy efficiency, optimal supply demands from logic core and on-chip memory are conflicting. In this paper, we perform static reliability analysis of 6T SRAM and discover the variance among different sizing configuration and asymmetric minimum voltage requirements between read and write operations. We leverage this asymmetric property i n near-threshold processors equipped with voltage boosting capability by proposing an opportunistic dual-supply switching scheme with a write aggregation buffer. Our results show that proposed technique improves energy efficiency by more than 21.45% with approximate 10.19% performance speed-up.

Dual power automatic fast switching

“…It exists in all areas of life and is indispensable [1][2][3] .With the development of society, the dual-channel AC fast-switching power supply is widely used [4][5][6] . Factories, schools, hotels, underground drilling teams and special application environments are equipped with dual-power supplies [7][8][9] . In addition, key areas, including hospitals, airports, aerospace radar stations, large communication stations [10][11][12] , banks and other national important control rooms need to use this technology [13][14] .…”