Estimating and Enhancing the Yield of Tuneling SRAM Cells by Simulation

As a novel implementation of the static random access memory (SRAM), the tunneling SRAM (TSRAM) uses the negative differential resistance of tunnel diodes (TD’s) and potentially offers considerable improvements in both standby power dissipation and integration density compared to the conventional CMOS SRAM. TSRAM has not yet been realized with a useful bit capacity mainly because the level of uniformity required of the nanoscale TD’s has been demanding and difficult to achieve. In this letter, we propose a Monte Carlo approach for estimating the yield of TSRAM cells and show that by optimizing the cell’s external circuit parameters, we can relax the allowable tolerance of a key device parameter of a resonant-TD-(RTD) based cell by three times.

The temperature dependence of effective thermal conductivity of open-celled steel alloy foams

The effective thermal conductivity of steel alloy FeCrAlY (Fe-20 wt.% Cr-5 wt.% Al-2 wt.% Y-20 wt.%) foams with a range of pore sizes and porosities was measured between 300 and 800 K, under both vacuum and atmospheric conditions. The results show that the effective thermal conductivity increases rapidly as temperature is increased, particularly in the higher temperature range (500-800 K) where the transport of heat is dominated by thermal radiation. The effective conductivity at temperature 800 K can be three times higher than that at room temperature (300 K). Results obtained under vacuum conditions reveal that the effective conductivity increases with increasing pore size or decreasing porosity. The contribution of natural convection to heat conduction was found to be significant, with the effective thermal conductivity at ambient pressure twice the value of vacuum condition. The results also show that natural convection in metal foams is strongly dependent upon porosity. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.