Process variation effects on FinFET based content addressable memory

Abstract

FinFET (Fin-type field-effect transistor) is an upcoming transistor technology beyond 22-nm which offers interesting power-delay tradeoff. In this work, a Binary Content Addressable Memory (BCAM) cell is designed in both shorted gate (SG) mode and independent gate (IG) mode using 20nm FinFET technology. The various performance parameters were measured and compared for both the modes. The SG mode BCAM has 43% improved search delay, 22% improved access time and 10% less power consumption than the IG mode BCAM. The same cell was analyzed under process variation using Monte Carlo simulations. The delay of SG mode BCAM is degraded by 13% and average power was increased by 8%. The IG mode delay was degraded by 18% and average power was increased by 11%. So it can be concluded that the SG provides better performance than IG mode.