Computing-in-Memory Using Ferroelectrics: From Single-to Multi-Input Logic

As a promising solution to address memory wall, computing in memory (CiM) designs using CMOS or emerging non-volatile memories (NVMs) are proposed to support bit-wise Boolean logic and arithmetic operations. Unlike the conventional executions that read data out of memory, process sequentially and send the outputs back, CiM implementations fully utilize its parallel in-memory bit-wise computation nature and hence reduce the unnecessary data transfer, thereby saving both area and power consumption. This paper proposes CiM designs based on Ferroelectric FETs (FeFETs) for bit-wise Boolean logic and multi-input MAJ operations. By exploiting the merged memory and switch property of FeFETs, our design realizes both high storage density and energy efficiency in computation. Evaluation results demonstrate that our proposed CiM designs can achieve significant energy saving and performance improvement, up to ~31% for Boolean logic and ~11× for majority vote, when compared to other NVM counterparts.