Investigation on Artificial Intelligence Hardware Architecture Design Based on Logic-in-Memory Ferroelectric Fin Field-Effect Transistor at Sub-3nm Technology Nodes

Abstract

With the advancement of artificial intelligence and internet of things, logic-in-memory (LiM) technology has garnered attention. This article presents research on LiM utilizing ferroelectric fin field-effect transistor (FinFET). Herein, the LiM characteristics of FinFET with hafnia-based switchable ferroelectric gate stack applied to the sub-3 nm future technology node are analyzed. This analysis is extended to the system level and its characteristics are observed. A compact model of the ferroelectric capacitor using Verilog-A is developed and the operation of LiM circuits such as 1-bit full adder, ternary content-addressable memory, and flip-flop by combining FinFET characteristics based on atomistic simulation with fabricated silicon-doped hafnium oxide characteristics is analyzed. Furthermore, by applying these ferroelectric devices, a power consumption reduction of 85.2% in the convolutional neural network accelerator at the system level is observed.