A scalable pipelined architecture for fast buffer SRAMs

The design of synchronous buffer SRAMs for packet switching and signal processing applications is described. Called scalable cellular RAM (SCRAM), the approach configures memory blocks in a 2-D array with fully pipelined address and data distribution. The memory is scalable in that the access frequency is determined by the access time of a single block and is independent of the number of blocks. An experimental 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS 256 Kb SCRAM chip is described that operates at 240 MHz. Simulation results show that larger arrays are feasible using the suggested power reduction and redundancy techniques.