Charge-Domain Static Random Access Memory-Based In-Memory Computing with Low-Cost Multiply-and-Accumulate Operation and Energy-Efficient 7-Bit Hybrid Analog-to-Digital Converter

Abstract

This study presents a charge-domain SRAM-based in-memory computing (IMC) architecture. The multiply-and-accumulate (MAC) operation in the IMC structure is divided into current- and charge-domain methods. Current-domain IMC has high-power consumption and poor linearity. Charge-domain IMC has reduced variability compared with current-domain IMCs, achieving higher linearity and enabling energy-efficient operation with fewer dynamic current paths. The proposed IMC structure uses a 9T1C bitcell considering the trade-off between the bitcell area and the threshold voltage drop by an NMOS access transistor. We propose an energy-efficient summation mechanism for 4-bit weight rows to perform energy-efficient MAC operations. The generated MAC value is finally returned as a digital value through an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), whose performance is one of the critical components in the overall system. The proposed flash-successive approximation register (SAR) ADC is designed by combining the advantages of flash ADC and SAR ADC and outputs digital values at approximately half the cycle of SAR ADC. The proposed charge-domain IMC is designed and simulated in a 65 nm CMOS process. It achieves 102.4 GOPS throughput and 33.6 TOPS/W energy efficiency at array size of 1 Kb.