Sheffield, England – 8 March, 2023. In order to speed up design times for customers, sureCore has launched a range of off-the-shelf, ultra-low power memory IP that is available for use at the most popular industry nodes.
“Customers invariably want a certain amount of customisation to precisely fit their project’s needs,” explained Paul Wells, sureCore’s CEO. “However, we have found that certain memory configurations keep coming up time and again because similar projects will have the same memory requirements. We have therefore productised these to become off-the-shelf IP that are immediately available to just be dropped into designs such as wearables, hearables, edge-AI and IoT where ultra-low power consumption is vital for competitive differentiation and hence to the success of the end product.”
Wearables & hearables typically require a long battery life and an “always-on” listening mode. An ideal solution to this challenge is sureCore’s EverOn™ single port SRAM that has an ultra-wide operating voltage range from 0.6V to process-nominal voltage. This has been adopted by both smart watch and “True Wireless Stereo” (TWS) earbud developers. Standard memory designs can only work down to process-nominal voltage however EverOn’s unique banking structure allows architects to implement fine-grained, even lower voltage, sleep modes for up to 50% power savings compared to standard memory cells. Thus, the voltage of the chip can be dynamically adjusted up and down in tandem with the performance requirements for the operation in hand to save power as required. For example, this could be going from a high performance to a low performance mode or even a monitoring state awaiting a wake-up event. Front end views are available in sureCore’s web-based compiler to help facilitate customer evaluation. Versions for 40ULP, 28HPC+, 22ULL are available with memory instances up to 0.5MB supported.
Another important group of applications which include Edge-AI, Machine Learning and also hearing aids that need to maximise battery life by minimising both operating and stand-by power consumption. These are ideally served by sureCore’s PowerMiser™ ultra-low dynamic power, single port SRAM that delivers up to 50% dynamic power savings compared to market leaders in addition to an average 20% saving on leakage power. Its patented “Bit Line Voltage Control” techniques have the added benefit of virtually eliminating performance compromises even with a much reduced power envelope. Retentive sleep modes, including light sleep for rapid wake-up as well as deep-sleep for maximal leakage current savings, are available. Various periphery Vt options are possible in order to optimise for either leakage or speed as demanded by application need. Front end views are available in sureCore’s web-based compiler to help facilitate customer evaluation. Versions for 28HPC+, 22ULL, 16FFC and 28FDSOI are available with memory instances up to 0.5MB supported.
sureCore™ -- When low power is paramount™
sureCore, the ultra-low power, embedded memory specialist, is the low-power innovator who empowers the IC design community to meet aggressive power budgets through a portfolio of ultra-low power memory design services and standard IP products. sureCore’s low-power engineering methodologies and design flows meet the most exacting memory requirements with a comprehensive product and design services portfolio that create clear market differentiation for customers. The company’s low-power product line encompasses a range of close to near-threshold, silicon proven, process-independent SRAM IP.
sureCore, EverOn, PowerMiser and When low power is paramount are trademarks of sureCore Limited