High performance and energy-efficient in-memory computing architecture based on SOT-MRAM

In this paper, we propose a novel Spin Orbit Torque Magnetic Random Access Memory (SOT-MRAM) array design that could either work as non-volatile memory or implement a reconfigurable in-memory logic (AND/OR/XOR) without addon logic circuits to memory chip as in conventional logic-in-memory designs. The computed logic output could be simply read out like a typical MRAM bit-cell through the modified memory peripheral circuits. Such intrinsic in-memory logic could be used to process data locally to greatly reduce power-hungry and long distance data communication in conventional Von Neumann computing systems. In this work, we further employ in-memory data encryption using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm as a case study to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design. The device to architecture co-simulation results show that the proposed in-memory data encryption design can achieve 71.2% and 17.3% lower energy consumption compared to CMOS-ASIC and recent Domain Wall (DW)-AES implementations, respectively. Furthermore, it shows ∼ 33% reduction in area compared to DW-AES.