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resistion
The selling point of RRAM seems to be minimal energy consumption per cycle and ...
DrQuine
This read-write endurance would seem to exceed the lifetime memory writing ...
Samsung reports trillion-cycle ReRAM
Peter Clarke
7/13/2011 6:13 AM EDT
LONDON – Researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and the department of physics at Sejong University (Seoul, Korea) have reported on a non-volatile resistive RAM with a read-write endurance of more than one trillion cycles.
The passive switching memory is made using asymmetric Ta2O5−x/TaO2−x bilayer structures and has 10-ns switching times, according to the authors of a paper published by Nature Materials.
The devices are of the metal-insulator-metal type with platinum electrodes and experimental results are reported for cell sizes from 50 microns by 50 microns down to 30-nm by 30-nm. The team also prepared samples with double stacked ReRAM cells with linear dimensions of about 90-nm to judge from a scaled scanning electron micrograph and reported on 10 by 10 cell arrays with cell dimensions of 30-nm by 30-nm. The measured activation energy of 1.47-eV provides an estimated retention of greater than 10 years at 85 degrees Celsius.
By combining two devices anti-serially, one above the other, the authors have also circumvented the known problem with cross-bar devices of stray leakage without the need for rectifying diodes or access transistors.
The authors claim to have reduced power consumption compared with other reported ReRAMs and that the high endurance and fast switching make the device suitable for use as working memory as a potential replacement for flash memory.
Related links and articles:
Article in Nature Materials
News articles:
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HP, Hynix to commercialize the memristor
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resistion
7/13/2011 10:57 AM EDT
SAIT does not represent what Samsung plans to manufacture, but what could disrupt Samsung any time.
This achievement looks underwhelming because Panasonic did this more than three years ago. But Panasonic will sample it later this year, I hear.
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chanj
7/13/2011 12:01 PM EDT
The trillion time read-write cycles and the energy requirement may be the focus of the research. More infos on Panasonic ReRAM are welcomed.
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selinz
7/13/2011 1:17 PM EDT
Impressive numbers but I wonder if the 10ns switching time best case number or if it is likely to go down.. Hard to tell from the info.
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peter.clarke
7/13/2011 1:22 PM EDT
@chanj
In mid-May Panasonic reportedly announced it is planning volume production of a 2-Mbit ReRAM in 2012. Nikkei and Reuters are referenced as sources.
Panasonic is known to have researched tantalum oxide ReRAM from presentations at learned conferences such as IEDM 2008.
ReRAM samples should be ready before the end of 2011 and volume production will start at Panasonic's Tonami Plant (Tonami City, Toyama Prefecture) the reports said.
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resistion
7/13/2011 4:59 PM EDT
It's too bad pt is used. Also, they haven't solved sneak path problem .for large arrays.
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batavier
7/14/2011 4:18 PM EDT
As as an Aerospace component engineer, I wonder if how this technology behaves under cold-start conditions. Will it even work down to -55C?
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resistion
7/15/2011 2:25 AM EDT
Lower temperature should be better, but published data almost always focuses on high temperature, which is harsher.
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DrQuine
7/19/2011 10:50 AM EDT
This read-write endurance would seem to exceed the lifetime memory writing operational requirements for a home computer. Does it make sense to start by deploying this technology to replace flash memory (with limited write cycles) in portions of computers with heavy re-write usage until it is cheap enough for wider deployment?
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resistion
7/19/2011 11:48 AM EDT
The selling point of RRAM seems to be minimal energy consumption per cycle and scales smaller than flash.
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