Research Projects

Utilizing Ring Oscillators to Dynamically Calibrate SRAM Noise Margins

Borivoje Nikolic and Zheng Guo

Abstract – Determining accurate noise margins for SRAM functionality becomes increasingly crucial as they shrink with the scaling of device dimensions and power supply voltages. Most conventional methods employ static measurements to extract relevant parameters to determine the corresponding static noise margins. In contrast, my research focuses more on a dynamic approach by examining transient rather than steady state parameters. This is accomplished by utilizing custom ring oscillators to read from and write into SRAM cells and then correlating their oscillation frequencies to a meaningful performance metric. I demonstrate through SPICE and Monte Carlo simulations in 45nm technology that it is possible to achieve a R2 of more than 0.9 in both read and write scenarios.