SOT-MRAM Digital PIM Architecture with Extended Parallelism in Matrix Multiplication

Taehwan Kim, Yunho Jang, Min Gu Kang, Byong Guk Park, Kyung Jin Lee, Jongsun Park

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Emerging device-based digital processing-in-memory (PIM) architectures have been actively studied due to their energy and area efficiency derived from analog to digital converter (ADC)-less PIM hardware. However, digital PIM architectures generally need large extra memories to copy parameters, and they also suffer from low computation per memory-cycle efficiencies. In this paper, we present a novel spin-orbit torque magnetic random access memory (SOT-MRAM) based digital PIM architecture to alleviate the extra memory size burden and computation cycle issues. First, we propose the spintronics-assisted logic-in-memory (SLIM) cells to support efficient digital logic operations inside memories, where the voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) is exploited to enhance the computation per memory-cycle efficiencies. In addition, crossed input source PIM (CRISP) architecture is proposed to extend the merits of SLIM cells by eliminating the extra memories for parameter copying while significantly improving the degree of parallel processing. An intra-memory pipelining scheme is also considered to further increase the throughput of CRISP. The proposed CRISP architecture has been implemented using 28 nm CMOS process, and it presents 1.10 TOPS/W and 0.95 TOPS/mm2, showing considerable improvements of energy efficiency and throughput per area, compared to the state-of-the-art digital PIM architecture. Finally, to evaluate the impact of computation errors induced from the SOT devices and circuits in CRISP architecture, classification accuracy simulations have been performed while applying computation errors.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)2816-2828
    Number of pages13
    JournalIEEE Transactions on Computers
    Volume71
    Issue number11
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2022 Nov 1

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 1968-2012 IEEE.

    Keywords

    • CNN Accelerator
    • In-memory computing
    • VCMA effect
    • digital processing in-memory
    • spintronics

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Software
    • Theoretical Computer Science
    • Hardware and Architecture
    • Computational Theory and Mathematics

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