Bipolar ReRAM Based non-volatile flip-flops for low-power architectures

Resistive Random Access Memories (ReRAMs) fabricated in the back-end-of-line are a promising breakthrough for including permanent retention mechanisms in embedded systems. This low-cost solution opens the way to advanced power management schemes. In this paper, we propose novel design architecture of a non-volatile flip-flop based on Bipolar ReRAMs (Bi-RNVFF). Compared to state-of-the-art Data-Retention flip-flop (with Balloon latch), the proposed design is 25% smaller due to 6T structure compared to the 8T structure of Data-Retention flip-flop. Moreover, being non-volatile, the proposed architecture exhibits a zero leakage compared to a Data-Retention Flip-Flop, which consumes ~3.2μW in sleep mode (leakage) for a 10K Flip-Flop design implemented in 22nm FDSOI technology. Our simulation results show that Bi-RNVFF is a true alternative for future “Power-on, Power-off” application adding Non-Volatility without significant burdening of the existing architectures.