Abstract

In this work, we propose a novel differential photonic static random access memory (pSRAM) bitcell design using fabrication-friendly photonic components. The proposed pSRAM overcomes the key limitations of traditional electrical SRAMs, which struggle with speed and power efficiency due to increasing bitline/wordline capacitance and interconnect resistance associated with long electrical wires as technology scales. By utilizing cross-coupled micro-ring resonators and differential photodiode structures, along with optical waveguides instead of traditional wordlines and bitlines, our pSRAM exhibits high-speed, and energy-efficient performance. The pSRAM bitcell demonstrates a read/write speed of 40 GHz, with a switching (static) energy consumption of approximately 0.6 pJ (0.03 pJ) per bit and a footprint of 330x290 um^ 2 using the GlobalFoundries 45SPCLO process node. These bitcells can be arranged into …

Date

2025

Authors

Md Abdullah-Al Kaiser, Sugeet Sunder, Clynn Mathew, Michal Rakowski, Ajey P Jacob, Akhilesh R Jaiswal

Journal

arXiv e-prints

Pages

arXiv: 2503.19544