Highly Reliable Memory Architecture Using Adaptive Combination of Proactive Aging-aware In-Field Self- Repair and ECC

• Main Authors: Mayuga, Gian, Sato, Yasuo, Inoue, Michiko
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2019
• Subjects: memory reliability; aging-aware; proactive reconfiguration; memory repair; in-field test and repair; ECC; Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/ecce-faculty-pubs/26; https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8747431
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Reliability of embedded memory is critical for SoCs. Aging-induced faults manifest in field, and they affect the reliability of embedded memories which occupy the most area of a SoC. By performing a proactive approach that repairs aged memory words in use, the probability of fault occurrence should be minimized. In this work, we proposed an in-field strategy that proactively repairs aged words as well as correctable words. The reliability is enhanced further by combining an aging test, an in-field repair, and an error correction technique. An adaptive reconfiguration of the memory words, including aged words, correctable words and uncorrectable words, is implemented with small overhead. A 3-state model that identifies memory cells as healthy, aged or faulty is newly introduced, and the reliability evaluation using this model demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.