1.5 V 1 K-CMOS-RAM with only 8 pins

A 256-bit/spl times/4-bit static RAM working on a supply voltage down to 1.2 V is described. A serial interface for the address and the data with a 4-bit bus reduces the pincount of the RAM to only 8. Special design techniques to reach the design goal-very low power at a reasonable circuit speed-are discussed in detail. The device is fabricated in a low power silicon gate CMOS process. An operating power of 500 /spl mu/W/MHz and a standby power of less than 1 /spl mu/W at 1.5 V supply voltage was achieved. With this serial interface a cycle time of 1 /spl mu/s at 1.5 V was measured.