[19p-P4-1~17] 13.5 Semiconductor devices and related technologies

[19p-P4-5] An MTJ-based Flip-Flop Circuit to Improve Robustness in Store/Restore Operations

〇Kimiyoshi Usami¹, Masaru Kudo¹, Keizo Hiraga², Kojiro Yagami² (1.Shibaura Inst. Tech., 2.Sony)

Keywords:non-volatile flip-flop,magnetic-tunneling-junction (MTJ),robustness

Power gating to employ non-volatile flip-flops (NVFFs) is key to minimize energy consumption in sensor-nodes or wearable applications. This paper proposes a magnetic-tunneling-junction(MTJ)-based NVFF circuit to reduce write energy while assuring robust store/restore operations. We demonstrate that the conventional NVFF causes a new disturbance fault at the store operation under process variation. Our proposed NVFF circuit has a structure to prevent this disturbance. Experimental results showed that the proposed NVFF reduces the circuit area and energy for store operation as compared with the conventional circuit without causing disturbance fault.