Segmented Virtual Ground Architecture for Low-Power Embedded SRAM

A new scheme to reduce the power consumption of static random access memories is presented. It is shown that using segmented virtual grounding (SVGND), it is possible to reduce both dynamic and static power consumption. The leakage power of the cells is reduced by reducing the voltage drop over a cell. The dynamic power dissipation is also reduced by eliminating the power consumption due to the discharge of the nondesired neighboring bitlines. The effectiveness of this scheme is compared to recently reported low-power schemes. It is shown that unlike those schemes, SVGND can accommodate multiple words in one row; a significant improvement in soft error rate tolerance