A 28 nm 2 Mbit 6 T SRAM With Highly Configurable Low-Voltage Write-Ability Assist Implementation and Capacitor-Based Sense-Amplifier Input Offset Compensation

This paper presents a highly configurable low-voltage write-ability assist implementation along with a sense-amplifier offset reduction technique to improve SRAM read performance. Write-assist implementation combines negative bit-line (BL) and VDD collapse schemes in an efficient way to maximize Vmin improvements while saving on area and energy overhead of these assists. Relative delay and pulse width of assist control signals are also designed with configurability to provide tuning of assist strengths. Sense-amplifier offset compensation scheme uses capacitors to store and negate threshold mismatch of input transistors. A test chip fabricated in 28 nm TIP CMOS process demonstrates operation down to 0.5 V with write assists and more than 10% reduction in word-line pulsewidth with the offset compensated sense amplifiers.