Date of Graduation

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Nelson, Alexander

Committee Member/Reader

Andrews, David

Committee Member/Second Reader

Di, Jia

Abstract

The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for decades. Demand for increased parallel computational performance has been increased by improvements in machine learning. This past decade has demonstrated the ever-increasing creativity and effort necessary to extract scaling improvements in CMOS fabrication processes. However, CMOS scaling is nearing its fundamental physical limits. A viable path for increasing performance is to break the von Neumann bottleneck. In-memory computing using emerging memory technologies (e.g. ReRam, STT, MRAM) offers a potential path beyond the end of Moore’s Law. However, there is currently very little support from industry tools for designers wishing to incorporate these devices and novel architectures. The primary issue for those using these tools is the lack of support for mixed-signal design, as HDLs such as Verilog were designed to work only with digital components. This work aims to improve the ability for designers to rapidly prototype their designs using these emerging memory devices, specifically memristors, by extending Verilog to support functional simulation of memristors with the Verilog Procedural Interface (VPI). In this work, demonstrations of the ability for the VPI to simulate memristors with the nonlinear ion-drift model and the behavior of a memristive crossbar array are presented.

Keywords

Memristor; VPI; Post moore; Computer architecture; Reconfigurable Computing

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