Modeling and Design for Magnetoelectric Ternary Content Addressable Memory (TCAM)
Siri Narla, Piyush Kumar, Ann Franchesca Laguna, Dayane Reis, X. Sharon Sharon, Michael Niemier, Azad Naeemi
Abstract
This article proposes a novel magnetoelectric (ME) effect-based ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). The potential array-level write and search performances of the proposed ME-TCAM are studied using experimentally calibrated compact physical models and SPICE simulations. The voltage-controlled operation of the ME devices eliminates the large joule heating present in the current-controlled magnetic devices and their low-voltage write operation makes them more energy-efficient compared to static random access memory-based TCAMs (SRAM-TCAMs). The proposed compact TCAM outperforms its SRAM counterpart with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.35\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$14.4\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> improvements in search and write energy, respectively, and its nonvolatility eliminates the standby leakage. We project an error rate below <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10^{-4}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> while considering various sources of variation in magnetic and CMOS devices. At the application level, using memory-augmented neural networks (MANNs), we project a <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> energy-delay–area-product (EDAP) improvement over an SRAM-TCAM.