An Energy Efficient Non-Volatile Flip-Flop based on CoMET Technology

Abstract

As we approach the limits of CMOS scaling, researchers are developing "beyond-CMOS" technologies to sustain the technological benefits associated with device scaling. Spin-tronic technologies have emerged as a promising beyond-CMOS technology due to their inherent benefits over CMOS such as high integration density, low leakage power, radiation hardness, and non-volatility. These benefits make spintronic devices an attractive successor to CMOS—especially for memory circuits. However, spintronic devices generally suffer from slower switching speeds and higher write energy, which limits their usability. In an effort to close the energy-delay gap between CMOS and spintronics, device concepts such as CoMET (Composite-Input Magnetoelectric-base Logic Technology) have been introduced, which collectively leverage material phenomena such as the spin-Hall effect and the magnetoelectric effect to enable fast, energy efficient device operation. In this work, we propose a non-volatile flip-flop (NVFF) based on CoMET technology that is capable of achieving up to two orders of magnitude less write energy than CMOS. This low write energy (≈2 aJ) makes our CoMET NVFF especially attractive to architectures that require frequent backup operations—e.g., for energy harvesting non-volatile processors.