Spintronic Switches for Ultra Low Energy On-Chip and Inter-Chip Current-Mode Interconnects

Abstract

Energy-efficiency and design-complexity of high-speed on-chip and inter-chip data-interconnects has emerged as the major bottleneck for high-performance computing-systems. As a solution, we propose an ultra-low energy interconnect design-scheme using nano-scale spintorque switches. In the proposed method, data is transmitted in the form of current-pulses, with amplitude of the order of few micro-amperes that flows across a small terminal-voltage of less than 50mV. Sub-nanosecond spintorque switching of scaled nano-magnets can be used to receive and convert such high-speed current-mode signal into binary voltage-levels using magnetic-tunnel-junction (MTJ), with the help of simple CMOS inverter. As a result of low-voltage, low-current signaling and minimal signal-conversion overhead, the proposed technique can facilitate highly compact and simplified designs for multi-gigahertz inter-chip and on-chip data-communication links. Such links can achieve more than ~100x higher energy-efficiency, as compared to state of the art CMOS interconnects.