Small-area and compact CMOS emulator circuit for CMOS/nanoscale memristor co-design

Sanghak Shin,Kyeong-Sik Min,Seongik Cho,Jun-Myung Choi

doi:10.1186/1556-276x-8-454

Sanghak Shin, Kyeong-Sik Min + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1556-276x-8-454

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Abstract

In this paper, a CMOS emulator circuit that can reproduce nanoscale memristive behavior is proposed. The proposed emulator circuit can mimic the pinched hysteresis loops of nanoscale memristor memory's current-voltage relationship without using any resistor array, complicated circuit blocks, etc. that may occupy very large layout area. Instead of using a resistor array, other complicated circuit blocks, etc., the proposed emulator circuit can describe the nanoscale memristor's current-voltage relationship using a simple voltage-controlled resistor, where its resistance can be programmed by the stored voltage at the state variable capacitor. Comparing the layout area between the previous emulator circuit and the proposed one, the layout area of the proposed emulator circuit is estimated to be 32 times smaller than the previous emulator circuit. The proposed CMOS emulator circuit of nanoscale memristor memory will be very useful in developing hybrid circuits of CMOS/nanoscale memristor memory.

Highlights

Memristors are being intensively explored as possible candidate for future memories because of simplicity in fabrication, possibility in three-dimensional integration, compatibility with CMOS technology in the fabrication process, and so on
Before we develop a CMOS emulator circuit for memristor, memristive behavior should be explained first
To mitigate the large area overhead of the previous emulator circuit, we propose a new emulator circuit of memristors that is more compact and simpler than the previous emulator circuits [6]

Summary

Introduction

Memristors are being intensively explored as possible candidate for future memories because of simplicity in fabrication, possibility in three-dimensional integration, compatibility with (complementary metal-oxidesemiconductor) CMOS technology in the fabrication process, and so on. Real integration of memristors and CMOS circuits is very rarely available to most engineers and scholars who want to be involved in designing various kinds of CMOS circuits using memristors. To help those engineers and scholars who cannot access memristor fabrication technology but want to design memristor circuits, a CMOS emulator circuit that can reproduce the physical hysteresis loop of memristor's voltage-current relationship is needed

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