Irem Boybat-Kara
IEDM 2023
We present the first cryogenic characterization of read noise in 14 nm CMOS compatible analog resistive RAMs (ReRAMs) and evaluate the efficiency of analog in-memory (AIM) neural network (NN) training at 77 K using the optimized Tiki-Taka algorithm (TTv2). Compared to standard room temperature operation, cryogenic operation suppresses the read noise by an exceptional 88% and improves the analog dynamic range by 2200% owing to reduced stochasticity and improved heat confinement in the conductive metal oxide layer. The effectiveness of analog cryo-ReRAMs in training NNs is validated by simulations using TTv2 on handwritten digits yielding an accuracy of 96.5%, comparable to the floating-point baseline and the highest reported to date for non-volatile memories (NVMs) at cryogenic temperatures. The results highlight the potential for cryogenic ReRAM technology in power-constrained applications such as quantum computing.