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rbtbob
peter.clarke
I believe VO2 is well known for displaying Mott transition which is temperature ...
Micron claims first high-volume production of 45-nm PCM
Dylan McGrath
7/17/2012 8:27 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO—Claiming to offer the first phase change memory (PCM) in high-volume production, U.S. memory chip vendor Micron Technology Inc. Tuesday (July 17) announced the availability of a 45-nm multi-chip module for mobile devices featuring PCM.
Micron (Boise, Idaho) said its PCM solution for mobile devices features 1-gigabit (Gb) PCM plus 512-megabit (Mb) LPDDR2 in a multi-chip package.
The 1-Gb product is targeted at high-end feature phones, which can benefit from the speed of the read in PCM and simplified software development, according Philippe Berge, senior director of NOR, PCM, e.MMC business for Micron's Wireless Solutions Group. Berge said forthcoming Micron products would target smartphones and other mobile products.
"This is the first product using 45-nm technology, which is really validating high-volume manufacturing of this disruptive technology," Berge said. "Based on that, we are going to have some kind of proliferation in both directions to extend our coverage of the high-volume feature phone market and also later on to address the smartphone market."
PCM claims advantages over traditional memory devices in areas such as boot time, simplified software development, performance and overwrite capability. The technology is also said to be power efficient.
However, the technology has hit a number of obstacles on the road to deployment. detractors argue that it will never be cost competitive with traditional types of memory, and there are also lingering concerns about PCM's temperature sensitivity.
Berge said that improvements in non-volatile memory technology over the past 20 years have been evolutionary in nature, but that PCM is a truly disruptive technology.
"It's natural that people need to touch it to really be convinced that it is manufacturable and that it delivers according to expectations," Berge said. "We are now at the stage that we can demonstrate that PCM delivers according to our plans. And that will really be the difference."
Micron said the design-optimizing shared interface between LPDDR2 and PCM is fully compliant with Jedec industry standards.
Micron maintains that its PCM product line has established a foothold in the wireless industry, citing as eivdence relationships with global customers and enablers, engagement with device manufactures and cooperation with Intel Mobile Communications, which includes recent PCM qualification.
"Our commitment to innovation and continued development of advanced products to address the voracious demands of the wireless industry is clear and strong," said Tom Eby, vice president of the Wireless Solutions Group at Micron, in a statement. "We are determined to evolve and innovate by continuing to offer the best-tailored solutions for both today's and tomorrow's market requirements."
Micron (Boise, Idaho) said its PCM solution for mobile devices features 1-gigabit (Gb) PCM plus 512-megabit (Mb) LPDDR2 in a multi-chip package.
The 1-Gb product is targeted at high-end feature phones, which can benefit from the speed of the read in PCM and simplified software development, according Philippe Berge, senior director of NOR, PCM, e.MMC business for Micron's Wireless Solutions Group. Berge said forthcoming Micron products would target smartphones and other mobile products.
"This is the first product using 45-nm technology, which is really validating high-volume manufacturing of this disruptive technology," Berge said. "Based on that, we are going to have some kind of proliferation in both directions to extend our coverage of the high-volume feature phone market and also later on to address the smartphone market."
PCM claims advantages over traditional memory devices in areas such as boot time, simplified software development, performance and overwrite capability. The technology is also said to be power efficient.
However, the technology has hit a number of obstacles on the road to deployment. detractors argue that it will never be cost competitive with traditional types of memory, and there are also lingering concerns about PCM's temperature sensitivity.
Berge said that improvements in non-volatile memory technology over the past 20 years have been evolutionary in nature, but that PCM is a truly disruptive technology.
"It's natural that people need to touch it to really be convinced that it is manufacturable and that it delivers according to expectations," Berge said. "We are now at the stage that we can demonstrate that PCM delivers according to our plans. And that will really be the difference."
Micron said the design-optimizing shared interface between LPDDR2 and PCM is fully compliant with Jedec industry standards.
Micron maintains that its PCM product line has established a foothold in the wireless industry, citing as eivdence relationships with global customers and enablers, engagement with device manufactures and cooperation with Intel Mobile Communications, which includes recent PCM qualification.
"Our commitment to innovation and continued development of advanced products to address the voracious demands of the wireless industry is clear and strong," said Tom Eby, vice president of the Wireless Solutions Group at Micron, in a statement. "We are determined to evolve and innovate by continuing to offer the best-tailored solutions for both today's and tomorrow's market requirements."
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resistion
7/17/2012 8:58 PM EDT
The problem is there is also NAND+DRAM MCP, and it's hard for any NOR-like component to compete with that on cost at the Gb level.
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greenpattern
7/17/2012 9:07 PM EDT
High-power consuming PCM + high-power consuming DRAM, that's brilliant.
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resistion
7/17/2012 9:30 PM EDT
Their previous 90nm product was standalone NOR. Apparently didn't fly, so they're trying MCP like Samsung's NC-PRAM. That's gone too.
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nvm.expert
7/19/2012 10:39 AM EDT
What are you talking about? PCM has MUCH lower standby power than a DRAM. For this type of application (phone which is typically in standby) it will save GOBS of power.
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greenpattern
7/22/2012 9:57 AM EDT
PCM uses very high current density for write, and voltage is not low either.
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Gil Russell
7/18/2012 11:58 AM EDT
Second source?...,
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selinz
7/18/2012 5:11 PM EDT
It seems like the ratio of PCM to Dram is too low. Should this be more like 10:1?
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jg_
7/19/2012 11:50 PM EDT
Yes, but this is a first-release part, so they will put in the DRAM the customers demand, and the PCM they are able to actually make... logical to expect larger PCM as soon as {if?} this hits critical-mass commercially.
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dylan.mcgrath
7/18/2012 6:27 PM EDT
Story was updated this morning after I spoke with Philippe Berge, senior director of NOR, PCM, e.MMC business for Micron's Wireless Solutions Group. Berge said Micron has previously had PCM in volume production at 90-nm. He also touted this latest announcement as proof of PCM's potential.
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R G.Neale
7/18/2012 8:14 PM EDT
Dylan: Did Micron tell you how many of these 90nm devices in "volume production" were actually shipped and sold? More importantly how many product design- in wins were achieved?
"Proof of PCM's potential" I think PCM potential has been there for fifty years-for PCM realization of potential is the name of the game, with PCM devices that are competitive in price, performance and reliability.
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Jame77
7/18/2012 6:42 PM EDT
Waiting for the "PCM is a techno-ponzi" guy to chime in.
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dylan.mcgrath
7/18/2012 7:14 PM EDT
I know. I have kind of been waiting to hear from Volatile Memory on this, too.
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Volatile Memory
7/19/2012 10:36 AM EDT
dylan: Why wait? Didn't you see the DRAM in the chip? PCM was supposed to replace both DRAM and NOR - why do you now need to add DRAM in the MCP? Please enlighten us!
No commercial product is using Micron's "volume" product, and none will ever will. The reasons have been explained to you numerous times.
Oh, and by the way, after Ovonyx goes bankrupt this year, it will all become clear to you.
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R G.Neale
7/18/2012 7:53 PM EDT
In a comment added to my piece published July 2010
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4205010/Phase-change-memory-rebuttal
a reader cited a quote from Samsung “…Memory for portable consumer devices today is at a major turning point as mobile applications increasingly require more diverse memory technology,” said Jun Dong-soo, an executive vice president at Samsung Electronics.
“The launch of our PRAM in an advanced MCP solution for the replacement of 40 nm-class and finer geometry NOR meets this need head-on,” he said...."
The results of that head-on collision may have some relevance to Micron as they proceed along what appears to be the same road. For the new PCM I assume and hope “availability” means the 1G-bit MCP is fully qualified and with an associated data sheet. The write/erase lifetime cited for this 1 G-bit 45nm MCP device is given as 100,000 cycles, whereas Micron’s prediction for w/e cycle lifetime at 45nm was 10E9 cycles. This was discussed in
http://www.eetimes.com/design/memory-design/4210054/PCM-Scalability-The-Myth--Part-2-?pageNumber=0
All things being equal, it may be churlish to describe this is anything but PCM progress; representing a scaling holding point until, and if, the very difficult PCM scaling problems ever get solved. My view is unless Micron can in short order get a scaled 8G-bit PCM in the MCP or their Cube (or even a multi-chip based 8G-bit PCM) they will suffer the same fate as the Samsung MCP-PCM. So continuing the road analogy above we hope they have their seat belts on.
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rbtbob
7/18/2012 11:16 PM EDT
Mr. Neale, What do you think about the U of Penn research announced in June: "Now we have shown that there is a way to achieve this transition without melting the material," Agarwal said. "We show that short electrical pulses of a few hundred nanosecond duration gradually induce disorder in the material until it amorphizes."
http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=25686.php
(I could not find the research covered here on EE Times)
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R G.Neale
7/19/2012 4:41 AM EDT
Mr Rbtbob-I can assure you there was some in- house editorial discussion. I am still working through their paper. On the the "potential" NV memory front I am more impressed with the nmRAM (atomically dispersed metal) work from the same University. I have done some scaling exercises on the nmRAM and it looks good. It offers a very low write current but does require a bi-directional matrix isolating device.
In answer to your specific question, my first concern was understanding how the sample was physically supported. I think you have to consider the possibility that the material being subjected to the short pulses was under strain the local pressure wave could induce nano-cracks that appear at the surface.
Chopping away at the crystal structure with very small multiple reset pulses has been part of the PCM reset technique since day one. have a look at the 100 level PCM work at Stanford. Look under PCM Brain with EEtimes search engine.
In that case resolving the actual temperature at the grain boundaries, melting or otherwise is not trivial.It is not clear why this disorder is seen at the surface other than the strain provides a "crack" propagation mechanism.
Finally does this disordered material have a glass transition temperature and the other properties of the disordered PCM material created by melting and quenching. There is a non-melting order transition at the glass transition temperature perhaps without melting.
More on this later perhaps.
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resistion
7/19/2012 4:47 AM EDT
Very interesting to me too. I think Prof. Agrawal's group attributed the amorphization to dislocation bunching under "electric wind" which I interpret to mean electromigration. But I haven't read the article myself. Need to go somewhere to get access.
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rbtbob
7/19/2012 9:25 AM EDT
I am hoping that the mechanism in the U of Penn research is the same as something I read in a research paper quite a while ago. That paper proposed a matrix with most of the vertices fixed, but particular pieces of some of the unit cells come loose. Like a bunch of tiny gates being opened. I have a vague memory that Mr. Neale has observed a similar mechanism in a cell with a very small cross section. I know that there is research being done on doping the chalcogenide with Fe, but I suggest that Prof. Agrawal try their nano-wires doped with Tb and Er. (2 separate wires) That is from another paper I read that reported anomalous results from some rare earth doped chalcogenides.
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Volatile Memory
7/19/2012 10:41 AM EDT
rbtbob: I will add to Mr. Neale's comment that PCM's short electrical pulses of a few hundred nanosecond duration gradually induced disorder in your net worth until it vaporized it, as shown in your bankruptcy court letter.
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rbtbob
7/19/2012 1:32 PM EDT
You are misconstruing what I said about my trading. 4x minus 1x leaves 3x. I do not think EE Times will misconstrue the negative value of our two comments.
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jg_
7/19/2012 11:47 PM EDT
"without melting the material," is then followed by "gradually induce disorder in the material until it amorphizes."
- That sounds very much like melting to me... so is this an exercise in semantics, or is there some yield/lifetime gain from this new form of 'melting' ?
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resistion
7/20/2012 4:45 AM EDT
It's somewhat unfortunate their operation voltage is too high.
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kinnar
7/19/2012 8:26 AM EDT
The PCM needs to primary questions to be answered and solved, 1. The price of the memory and 2. The reliability of the product using PCM throughout the globe. If this goes well then I think one can take of risk of using it in the proven designs.
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CooperMW
7/20/2012 8:06 AM EDT
Price same as NAND SLC
Rel equal to DRAM, 10x NOR, 100x NAnd
Makes a lot of sense to use this memory
Only issue is the temp.. You can't take it above boiling temp.
My guess - PRAM is going to hit Ssd market and CPU market earlier than mobile
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greenpattern
7/22/2012 10:17 AM EDT
PCM won't be competitive unless it can go to 20 nm with NOR capability, not this LPDDR2-NVM mix.
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eista
7/22/2012 7:46 PM EDT
NOR scaling has stopped at 45nm for a while. Any PCM at a node smaller than 45nm could give competitive edge to NOR at least. The problem is that NOR is a shrinking market.
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resistion
7/20/2012 12:55 PM EDT
As I recall there was some delay to get this out, it was announced more than a year ago.
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resistion
7/22/2012 9:34 PM EDT
Numonyx published their 45 nm PCM at IEDM 2009, revealing a RESET current of at least 200 uA.
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rbtbob
7/29/2012 5:30 AM EDT
Here is another unusual development for EE Times to look into. RIKEN of Japan claims a new switching mechanism:
"...Described in a paper in Nature, the device uses an electric-double layer to tune the charge density on the surface of vanadium dioxide (VO2), a well-known classical strongly-correlated material. Thanks to the strong correlation of electrons and electron-lattice coupling in VO2, this surface charge in turn drives localized electrons within the bulk to delocalize, greatly magnifying the change of electronic phase. A potential of only 1 V, they show, is enough to switch the material from an insulator to a metal and trigger an astounding thousand-fold drop in resistance...snip...the research group analyzed the crystal structure of the VO2, showing that it, too, undergoes a transformation, from monoclinic to tetragonal structure..."
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resistion
7/29/2012 5:06 PM EDT
VO2 has a metal-insulator transition accompanied by crystal structure change at ~70 C. But isn't this reversible?
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rbtbob
7/30/2012 7:59 AM EDT
Maybe EE Times can access the Nature article and offer some elaboration:
M. Nakano, K. Shibuya, D. Okuyama, T. Hatano, S. Ono, M. Kawasaki, Y. Iwasa and Y. Tokura. "Collective bulk carrier delocalization driven by electrostatic surface charge accumulation." Nature, 2012, DOI: 10.1038/nature11296
http://www.riken.jp/engn/r-world/info/release/press/2012/120726/index.html
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peter.clarke
8/1/2012 1:08 PM EDT
I believe VO2 is well known for displaying Mott transition which is temperature dependent.
I did see the Riken abstract flash by but have not yet had a chance to exam same.
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rbtbob
8/3/2012 8:46 AM EDT
and that leads straight to anomalous Hall effects and rare earth doping.
Does anyone have insight or opinion as to whether Micron buying Elpida will provide Micron better access to the research at Riken?
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