Novel Quadruple Cross-Coupled Memory Cell Designs With Protection Against Single Event Upsets and Double-Node Upsets

Abstract

This paper presents two novel quadruple cross-coupled memory cell designs, namely QCCM10T and QCCM12T, with protection against single event upsets (SEUs) and double-node upsets (DNUs). First, the QCCM10T cell consisting of four cross-coupled input-split inverters is proposed. The cell achieves full SEU tolerance and partial DNU tolerance through a novel feedback mechanism among its internal nodes. It also has a low cost in terms of area and power dissipation mainly due to the use of only a few transistors. Next, based on the QCCM10T cell, the QCCM12T cell is proposed that uses two extra access transistors. The QCCM12T cell has a reduced read-and-write access time with the same soft error tolerance when compared to the QCCM10T cell. Simulation results demonstrate the robustness of the proposed memory cells. Moreover, compared with the state-of-the-art hardened memory cells, the proposed QCCM12T cell saves 28.59% write access time, 55.83% read access time, and 4.46% power dissipation at the cost of 4.04% silicon area on average.

Keywords

• Double-node upset
• memory cell
• radiation hardening
• single event upset
• soft error