Comparison of the hierarchical and crossbar-based architectures for the construction multibank multiport memory

摘要

It is expected that a multi-bank multi-port memory can fulfill simultaneously the severe requirements of highly parallel systems with respect to access speed and high integration density, not possible with the conventional multi-port memory based on multiport cells. In this paper, we report a design study in 0.5μm 2 metal CMOS technology, which compares two possibilities for constructing a multi-bank multiport memory, the hierarchical construction (hierarchical multi-port memory (HMA)) and the conventional crossbar-switch based construction (crossbar memory). We also report an extrapolation formula for extending the design results to different memory configurations. Our results verify that the HMA approach allows more efficient designs than the crossbar approach for most practical memory configurations, achieving an average of about 26% smaller area for 32 and 64 blocks and 4, 8, 16 and 32 ports, and 28.5% shorter access time for reading.