High-density, next-generation computer storage that may store concerning one computer memory unit of information on a tool the dimensions of a postage — quite fifty times the information density of current non-volatile storage technology — is currently a step nearer to to production.
That’s as a result of Rice University’s breakthrough silicon dioxide technology can permit makers to fabricate “resistive random-access memory” (RRAM) devices at temperature with standard production strategies, the researchers say.
In a new paper in Nano Letters, a Rice team semiconductor diode by chemist James Tour compared its RRAM technology to quite a dozen competitive versions.
That’s as a result of Rice University’s breakthrough silicon dioxide technology can permit makers to fabricate “resistive random-access memory” (RRAM) devices at temperature with standard production strategies, the researchers say.
In a new paper in Nano Letters, a Rice team semiconductor diode by chemist James Tour compared its RRAM technology to quite a dozen competitive versions.
“This memory is superior to any or all alternative two-terminal unipolar resistive reminiscences by virtually each metric,” Tour aforementioned. “And as a result of our devices use silicon dioxide — the foremost studied material on Earth — the underlying physics ar each well-understood and simple to implement in existing fabrication facilities.” Tour is Rice’s T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry and faculty member of applied science and nanoengineering and of applied science.
How resistive memory works
The basic construct behind resistive memory devices is that the insertion of a insulator material — one that won’t ordinarily conduct electricity — between 2 wires. once a sufficiently high voltage is applied across the wires, a slim conductivity path is fashioned through the insulator material.
This illustration depicts the rewriteable crystalline filament pathway in Rice University’s porous silicon dioxide RRAM memory devices (credit: Tour Group/Rice University)
The presence or absence of those conductivity pathways is accustomed represent the binary 1s and 0s of digital knowledge.
Research with variety of insulator materials over the past decade has shown that such conductivity pathways is fashioned, broken and reformed thousands of times, which implies RRAM is used because the basis of rewritable random-access memory.
RRAM is below development worldwide and expected to succeed non-volatile storage technology within the marketplace at intervals some years as a result of it's quicker than flash and might pack much more info into less area.
Improving RRAM
Tour and colleagues began work on their breakthrough RRAM technology quite 5 years agone. The key ingredient of Rice’s RRAM is its insulator part, silicon dioxide. component|element|semiconductor|semiconducting material} is that the most copious element on Earth and also the basic ingredient in standard microchips.
Microelectronics fabrication technologies supported semiconducting material ar widespread and simply understood, however till the 2010 discovery of semiconducting filament pathways in silicon dioxide in Tour’s research laboratory, the fabric wasn’t thought of AN choice for RRAM.
Since then, Tour’s team has raced to any develop its RRAM and even used it for exotic new devices like clear versatile memory chips.
This microscope image shows the surface of the nanoporous silicon-oxide material employed in Rice University’s new RRAM memory devices. The red areas highlight gaps, or voids, within the material’s amorphous silicon-oxide coating. (Credit: Tour Group/Rice University)
“Our technology is that the just one that satisfies each market demand, each from a production and a performance point of view, for nonvolatile memory,” Tour aforementioned.
“It is factory-made at temperature, has a very low forming voltage, high on-off quantitative relation, low power consumption, nine-bit capability per cell, exceptional shift speeds and wonderful sport endurance.”
In the latest study, a team headed by lead author and Rice postdoctoral scientist Gunuk Wang showed that employing a porous version of silicon dioxide may dramatically improve Rice’s RRAM in many ways in which.
First, the porous material reduced the forming voltage — the facility required to make conductivity pathways — to but 2 volts, a 13-fold improvement over the team’s previous best and variety that stacks up against competitive RRAM technologies. additionally, the porous silicon dioxide additionally allowed Tour’s team to eliminate the requirement for a “device edge structure.”
“That suggests that we will take a sheet of porous silicon dioxide and simply drop electrodes while not having to fabricate edges,” Tour aforementioned. “When we tend to created our initial announcement concerning silicon dioxide in 2010, one amongst the primary queries I got from business was whether or not we tend to may do that while not fabricating edges. At the time we tend to couldn't, however the amendment to porous silicon dioxide finally permits United States of America to try and do that.
“We additionally incontestable that the porous silicon dioxide material accrued the endurance cycles quite a hundred times as compared with previous nonporous silicon dioxide reminiscences. Finally, the porous silicon dioxide material contains a capability of up to 9 bits per cell that's highest variety among oxide-based reminiscences, and also the multiple capability is unaffected by high temperatures.”
Tour aforementioned the newest developments with porous silicon dioxide — reduced forming voltage, elimination of would like for edge fabrication, wonderful endurance sport and multi-bit capability — ar very appealing to memory firms.
“This may be a major accomplishment, and we’ve already been approached by firms curious about licensing this new technology,” he said.
Abstract of Nano Letters paper
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