Emerging memory technologies for reconfigurable routing in FPGA architecture

Emerging non-volatile resistive memories such as Phase Change Memories (PCMs) are promising candidates to replace Flash and SRAM memories in some applications. This paper introduces a novel memory node for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). We propose an elementary circuit storing the reconfiguration signals by means of two resistive memories and one programming transistor. The area and write time of the proposed node are investigated and their impact on complex circuits is assessed. We show that the elementary memory node yields an improvement in area and write time of 3.4× and 16× respectively vs. a regular Flash implementation. We use the designed memory node to reconfigure the switchbox in the routing part of FPGAs, and we demonstrate a delay reduction up to 50% on a benchmark of logic circuits that we mapped on an FPGA architecture thanks to the area saving and especially to the low on-resistance of PCMs.