Time-Domain-Based Non-volatile In-Memory Computing Architecture Using FeFETs for Binary Neural Network

Aditya Sharma, Vatsal Dixit, Dinesh Kushwaha, Nitanshu Chauhan, Vishal Saxena, Sudeb Dasgupta, Anand Bulusu
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee


Abstract

This paper presents an energy-efficient 128x64 In-Memory Computing (IMC) macro using a novel 5T-2FeFET bit-cell for Binary Neural Networks. This work combines the non-volatile nature of ferroelectric memories and Time-Domain computing topology, which saves energy not only during IMC operations but also during the energy-intensive weight writing process during system bootup from the power-off state. This brief discusses read, write, and IMC operations in the proposed 5T-2FeFET bit-cell, along with an analysis of the designed macro using the proposed bit-cell. The proposed macro supports multiple row activations performing 7936 (128x62) 1bx1b multiply and accumulate operations (MAC) in a single clock cycle. MAC output is accumulated as delay on the rising and falling edge of the compute pulse, which is further quantized and converted to the digital domain by a TDC unit giving 1b output. The proposed IMC macro achieves an energy efficiency of 543.6 TOPS/W and throughput of 952.3 GOPS operating at 1 V with a 60 MHz clock frequency.