NVM-in-Cache: Repurposing Commodity 6T SRAM Cache into NVM Analog Processing-in-Memory Engine using a Novel Compute-on-Powerline Scheme

Abstract

The rapid growth of deep neural network (DNN) workloads has significantly increased the demand for large-capacity on-chip SRAM in machine learning (ML) applications, with SRAM arrays now occupying a substantial fraction of the total die area. To address the dual challenges of storage density and computation efficiency, this paper proposes an NVM-in-Cache architecture that integrates resistive RAM (RRAM) devices into a conventional 6T-SRAM cell, forming a compact 6T-2R bit-cell. This hybrid cell enables Processing-in-Memory (PIM) mode, which performs massively parallel multiply-and-accumulate (MAC) operations directly on cache power lines while preserving stored cache data. By exploiting the intrinsic properties of the 6T-2R structure, the architecture achieves additional storage capability, high computational throughput without any bit-cell area overhead. Circuit- and array-level simulations in GlobalFoundries 22nm FDSOI technology demonstrate that the proposed design achieves a throughput of 0.4 TOPS and 452.34 TOPS/W. For 128 row-parallel operations, the CIFAR-10 classification is demonstrated by mapping a Resnet-18 neural network, achieving an accuracy of 91.76%. These results highlight the potential of the NVM-in-Cache approach to serve as a scalable, energy-efficient computing method by re-purposing existing 6T SRAM cache architecture for next-generation AI accelerators and general purpose processors.