In modern on-chip memories, an increasing demand for higher performance, lower power, reduced area, and improved robustness creates a rising need for advanced microarchitecture and circuit design techniques.
Particularly in large-signal multi-ported register files, these advanced design techniques include: (i) multi-banked arrays, (ii) multi-frequency arrays, (iii) multi-bit width gating, (iv) multi-latency cycle times, (v) multi-threshold devices, and (vi) multi-strength keepers. In modern microprocessors, register files are important ingredients, but the increasing number of register file read/write ports and entries can produce a bottleneck. This thesis discusses various new techniques, to address the challenges facing register file designers, and to satisfy microprocessor requirements.
The scalability of register files is a concern in modern microprocessors. As microprocessors become wider to exploit instruction level parallelism, this increases the amount of read/write ports. In turn this results in quadratic growth in register file area, decreasing frequency and increasing the power consumption. Multi-banked and multi-frequency register files reduce area and power consumption by relieving the read/write port congestion. Multi-bit width register files reduce active power during read/write operations by gating the clock/wordline. Pipelined register files improve frequency by reducing logic depth, but require multiple cycles for read/write operations. Multi-latency register files contain variable access cycle times, which are dependent on the physical locality of the data. This improves overall microprocessor performance and recovers lost instructions per cycle.
As instruction window size continues to expand in modern microprocessors, the resulting demand for additional register file entries requires increased use of wide-OR dynamic circuits. However, these circuits, primarily found in local/global bitlines, are susceptible to leakage noise. In a multi-threshold process, a self-reverse bias technique exploits the use of leaky low-VTH devices, reducing bitline leakage and improving robustness. This circuit topology improves bitline delay from reduced keeper contention. Downsized keepers improve bitline delay in low leakage conditions; stronger keepers improve bitline robustness in high leakage conditions. Utilizing this concept, register files with multi-strength keepers enable robust operation across a wide range of process, voltage, and temperature.
These various design techniques show excellent promise in improving performance, power, area, and robustness of multi-ported register files in modern microprocessors.
Author: Steven K. Hsu
Source: Oregon State University