Scouting Logic: A Novel Memristor-Based Logic Design for Resistive Computing

Abstract

Memristor technology is a promising alternative to CMOS due to its high integration density, near-zero standby power, and ability to implement novel resistive computing. One of the major limitations of these architectures is the limited endurance of memristor devices, especially when a logic gate requires multiple steps/switching to execute the logic operations. To alleviate the endurance requirement and improve the performance, we present a novel logic design style, called scouting logic that executes any logic gate by only reading the memristor devices and without changing their states. Hence, no impact on the memristors' endurance. The proposed design is implemented using two styles (current and voltage based). To illustrate the performance of scouting logic based designs, the area, delay, and power consumption are analyzed and compared with state-ofthe- art. The results show that scouting logic improves the delay and power consumption by at least a factor of 2.3, while having similar or less area overhead. Finally, we discuss the potential applications and challenges of scouting logic.