Analysis of Gate Oxide Break down in Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) Cells

Gate oxide break down (GOBD) is one of the major emerging issues in the technology advancement which degrades the performance of the CMOS devices. Thus, by reducing the Gate-oxide thickness continuously the performance of the device is maintained. Mean while, the scaling of device size has reduced gate oxide thickness to a few atomic layers, increasing the liability of the Gate Oxide Breakdown (GOBD). During breakdown, devices go through a gradual wear out process characterized by increased leakage. In this paper, the effect of gate oxide breakdown in 6T SRAM cell, 9T SRAM cell and Schmitt Trigger (ST2) based SRAM cell was analysed in detail. It was observed that the ST2 based SRAM cell consumes less power and provides better read-stability and write stability compared toother existing standard SRAM cells.