Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Resistive Switches and Memories from Silicon Oxide
The nanocrystal wires are as small as 5 nanometers (billionths of a meter) wide, far smaller than circuitry in even the most advanced computers and electronic devices.
"The beauty of it is its simplicity," said Tour, Rice's T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. That, he said, will be key to the technology's scalability. Silicon oxide switches or memory locations require only two terminals, not three (as in flash memory), because the physical process doesn't require the device to hold a charge.
"Manufacturers feel they can get pathways down to 10 nanometers. Flash memory is going to hit a brick wall at about 20 nanometers. But how do we get beyond that? Well, our technique is perfectly suited for sub-10-nanometer circuits," he said. Meanwhile, the switch also shows robust nonvolatile properties, high ON/OFF ratios (>105), fast switching (sub-100-ns), and good endurance (104 write-erase cycles). It also means layers of silicon-oxide memory can be stacked in tiny but capacious three-dimensional arrays. "I've been told by industry that if you're not in the 3-D memory business in four years, you're not going to be in the memory business. This is perfectly suited for that,"
BAD HARDWARE: I can imagine cards based on this switches as backup devices of the future tablets.
Toshiba now says that it will add 32Gb and 3bit-per-cell products made in the 24nm process.
Seems that last flash iteration is around the corner. AFter that Resistive Switches will follow.
"The beauty of it is its simplicity," said Tour, Rice's T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science. That, he said, will be key to the technology's scalability. Silicon oxide switches or memory locations require only two terminals, not three (as in flash memory), because the physical process doesn't require the device to hold a charge.
"Manufacturers feel they can get pathways down to 10 nanometers. Flash memory is going to hit a brick wall at about 20 nanometers. But how do we get beyond that? Well, our technique is perfectly suited for sub-10-nanometer circuits," he said. Meanwhile, the switch also shows robust nonvolatile properties, high ON/OFF ratios (>105), fast switching (sub-100-ns), and good endurance (104 write-erase cycles). It also means layers of silicon-oxide memory can be stacked in tiny but capacious three-dimensional arrays. "I've been told by industry that if you're not in the 3-D memory business in four years, you're not going to be in the memory business. This is perfectly suited for that,"
BAD HARDWARE: I can imagine cards based on this switches as backup devices of the future tablets.
Toshiba now says that it will add 32Gb and 3bit-per-cell products made in the 24nm process.
Seems that last flash iteration is around the corner. AFter that Resistive Switches will follow.
THIS LINK posted by Joseph Bell : 10:08 AM
