AUG, 2010 ·
Adding new features while lowering the power consumption of IT equipments is in every manufacturer agenda. One of the top candidates in achieving this power reduction is within memory devices, shifting the demand for low-powered high-speed memory devices. This has lead researchers and manufactures to non-volatile devices requiring power for only read and write data and not for retaining data. An ideal candidate is RRAM, a new non-volatile memory type which are being developed by many companies. The technology comes with some similarities to CBRAM as well as phase change memory. So far different type of RRAM has been proposed based on various dielectric materials, from perovskites to transitional metal oxides and chalcogenides. Based on this, group of researchers at AIST (National Institute of Advance Industrial Science and Technology), Sharp Corporation, Institute of Semiconductor &Electronics Technologies of ULVAC and Professor Kazuya Nakayama and Akio Kitagawa of Kanazawa University has successfully, developed a process for integrating low-power, high-speed non-volatile resistance random access memory (RRAM) devices on a 128-kbit memory chip. The team has also succeeded to fabricate chip arrays on an 8-inch wafer. The RRAM chip array fabrication was done using the existing semiconductor manufacturing process, avoiding the use of high cost components such as noble metal electrodes as well as materials requiring special handling, resulting in a cost competitive memory devices. The institute is currently working to resolve all issues associated with commercialization of the new device at the array and chip levels for is early application and commercialization.
