Programmable stateful in-memory computing paradigm via a single resistive device

Data transfer bandwidth and the related energy consumption has become two of the most critical bottlenecks in conventional von-Newman architecture, owing to the separation of the processor and memory units and the performance mismatch between the two. Realization of the unity of logic computing and data storage in the same die has opened up a promising research direction of in-memory computing (IMC). Meanwhile nonvolatile memory (NVM) based programmable (or reconfigurable) logic architecture has always been a hot topic in the circuit and system societies. To date, lots of interest has been attracted and amazing advance has been made in the two fields, yet none can fully exploit the advantages of both. This paper takes a major step forward by introducing a novel nonvolatile programmable stateful IMC architecture via a single resistive device, which is a completely different design paradigm from previous studies. Each memory cell can perform different Boolean logic functions by dynamically programming the input signals. The computing output result is in-situ stored in the memory cell itself and can be readout with a memory-like operation. We will first give a brief review on this filed and then introduce our recent work. We will illustrate how the programmable stateful IMC operations can be implemented via a single resistive device and how the logic computing and data storage can be united within a memory chip.