Cascaded and resonant SRAM supply boosting for ultra-low voltage cognitive IoT applications

Abstract

To enable ultra-low power cognitive IoT systems, we present novel supply boosting techniques allowing low voltage SRAM. These techniques include enhancements at both the device and circuit levels. A new 14nm SOI test chip employing the techniques shows functional 8T SRAM down to 0.24V. We also show how supply boosting can lead to lower voltage operation of cognitive IoT applications using an example of a neural network running the MNIST benchmark.