Investigating and Improving the Performance of Radiation-Hardened SRAM Cell with the Use of Multi-Voltage Transistors

This research introduces a proposed energy-efficient radiation-hardened and improved read stability (RHIRS)-12T SRAM cell with a polarity hardening technique, which lowers the vulnerable nodes and allows all single-event upset (SEU) techniques to recover from single-event multiple-effect (SEME). To evaluate the relative performance using UMC 65nm CMOS technology of the proposed cell, a comparison analysis is conducted with various radiation-hardened SRAM cells currently in use, such as RHPD-12T, RHWC12T, HPHS12T, RHBD12T, RHD-12T, and EDP12T. When compared to the existing 12T SRAM cells, the proposed RHIRS-12T radiation-hardened SRAM cell has the highest read and hold stability. Compared to EDP12T, RHPD-12T, and RHWC12T SRAM cells, the simulation results demonstrate improvements in write delay of 33.63%, 21.41%, and 9.58%, respectively. It exhibits the lowest read delay as compared to the other considered SRAM cells. It saves 76.34%, 43.68%, 2.77%, and 0.13% energy consumption compared with RHBD12T, HPHS12T, RHPD-12T, and RHWC12T, respectively, during the read operation and it also saves 55.59%, 21.44%, and 6.04% energy compared with EDP12T, RHD-12T, and RHWC12T, respectively, during the write operation. It also shows enhancements of 78.55%, 61.06%, 44.87%, 20.11%, and 0.12% in critical charge value compared to RHBD12T, HPHS12T, RHWC12T, RHPD-12T, and RHD-12T, respectively. Additionally, we evaluate the relative performance of the proposed RHIRS-12T, a comparison analysis is performed with RHD-12T radiation-hardened SRAM cells having low-voltage transistor (LVT), standard-voltage transistor (RVT or SVT), high-voltage transistor (HVT), and super-high voltage transistor (SHVT). It exhibits the highest improvement in read stability at LVT compared to RHD-12T SRAM cell. It can also be used for aerospace applications due to its improved performance and stability.