Tutorial: Nonvolatile Circuits for Memory, Logic, and Artificial Intelligence

Memory has proven a major bottleneck in the development of energy-efficient chips for IoT applications and artificial intelligence (AI). Recent nonvolatile memory (NVM) devices not only serve as nonvolatile memory macros, but also enable the development of nonvolatile logics (nvLogics) for nonvolatile processors as well as computing-in-memory (CIM) for AI chips. In this tutorial, we begin with an introduction to various NVM technologies (i.e. MRAM, PCM, ReRAM) and the fundamental circuits used in NVM macros. We then review various state-of-the-art circuit techniques for low-power, high-speed on-chip NVM macros. In the third part of the tutorial, we examine some of the challenges involved in the further development of these technologies and review examples of NVM enabled nvLogics (i.e. nvFlipflop, nvSRAM, nvTCAM) for nonvolatile processors and CIMs for AI chips.