A CNTFET Based Bit-Line Powered Stable SRAM Design for Low Power Applications

Abstract

Higher charge mobility, gate control, and better electrostatics are the key reasons that make carbon nanotube field effect transistor (CNTFET) a better candidate to become the successor of conventional CMOS transistors. However, the increased charge mobility also enhances the leakage power. This work uses CNTFET for designing a low-power eight-transistor static random access memory (8T SRAM) cell. The leakage power of the proposed cell is reduced by 2.21×compared to conventional 6T SRAM at 0.3V with similar CNTFET parameters. The read and write power delay product of the proposed design is improved by 1.02×and 1.85×, respectively. Moreover, the read/ write/ hold static noise margin of the proposed cell is also enhanced by 1.98×/ 0.99×/ 1.01×, respectively, compared to the conventional 6T design. The proposed cell is also compared with three already proposed CNTFET based 8T SRAM designs. Cadence Virtuoso simulation tool and Stanford University 32 nm CNTFET verilog-A model file are used to achieve simulation results.