Cover Story
Making use of chalcogenide glass, PCM works in ways similar to that of rewritable CDs or DVDs and has emerged as a more than a credible substitute for NAND. PCM manufacturers have claimed that it can be used not only a significantly superior form of Flash memory but as a substitute for DRAM
memory technology needs to have demonstrated good performance with an understood storage mechanism and be scalable multiple generations beyond the 16nm technology generation. “Further, it should be ready for
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REFERENCE 1. ‘Emerging Materials in
Advanced Devices’ - SMC 2011 - Mike Corbett, Linx Consulting
2. Executive Summary -
Assessment of the Potential & Maturity of Selected Emerging Research Memory Technologies Workshop & ERD/ERM Working Group Meeting (April 6-7, 2010) - Jim Hutchby & Mike Garner. Published July 23 2010.
manufacturing within the next five to 10 years… Following review and discussion, the ERD and ERM Work Groups recommended… that (Spintronics) STT-MRAM and Redox RAM receive additional focus in research and development to accelerate progress toward commercialization of one or both of these technologies.{ii}” Spintronics, spin-transfer torque random access memory, or STT-RAM, offers lower power consumption and significantly improved scalability. Research into this technology, which has the potential to enable MRAM devices that combine low energy usage, significant device performance and reduce cost, has ramped up in the five or six years.
As work goes on to develop this technology, companies such as Hynix and Samsung (who purchased Grandis, one of the leaders in this industry sector, in August 2011), are committing resources to developmental work, although there are several challenges to overcome before this technology might be ready for commercial roll-out.
In terms of materials suitable for use in the development of STT-RAM, indium oxide, dosed with a small amount of chromium added to make it magnetic, is one potentially viable option. Other materials that could be considered include zinc and titanium oxides. Redox-RAM is the term used for a wide variety of Metal Insulator Metal structures that share reduction/oxidation (redox) electrochemistry as central to changing their resistance state from low to high, or vice versa.
These technologies also offer significant benefits, such as excellent potential for scaling below 10nm, extremely fast read and write cycles (ideal for memory applications), low current usage, compatibility with existing CMOS materials and processes. However, a reliability model remains elusive, so work is again ongoing to fully evaluate this technology as a viable future option in the memory space.
Conclusion
“The only constant is change” wrote Heraclitus in 470BC. Today he would probably have worked in the semiconductor industry. The past decade has seen significant evolution within the semiconductor industry at both the materials level and in terms of the development of memory and in particular non-volatile memory devices. Device scaling continues to decrease while the demands put on these devices is increasing. As a result, the materials used assume
greater importance as performance enablers, presenting significant opportunities for electronic materials manufacturers, particularly relating to the areas of custom R&D and specialized molecule design. To meet the challenges of moving to successive technology nodes while maintaining performance, optimising processes and controlling cost, we are seeing the ongoing development and importance of strategic collaborations throughout the supply chain. Hitting the performance/cost sweet spot remains one of the major challenges facing companies at the leading edge of electronic materials. To that end, materials suppliers must keep pace with a demanding business environment that calls for shorter times to HVM. In terms of memory, manufacturers are looking beyond existing solutions and are weighing up viable alternatives, both in terms of technologies and materials that will enable continued shrinkage yet deliver the optimal performance required, not only by today’s complex end user devices but by the applications that run on these platforms. Looking beyond Moore’s Law, it will be
interesting to see if the challenges posed by technologies such as STT-RAM and Redox-RAM can be solved in an acceptable to all fashion that could herald the start of a new phase in microelectronics.
© 2011 Angel Business Communications. Permission required.
www.euroasiasemiconductor.com Issue IV 2011
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