Emerging Nanoelectronic Devices

3Memory Technologies: Status and Perspectives

Victor V. Zhirnov¹ and Matthew J. Marinella²

¹Semiconductor Research Corporation, USA

²Sandia National Laboratories, USA

3.1 Introduction: Baseline Memory Technologies

Memory devices are a crucial component of current and future Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). There is a common distinction between ICT memory and storage. Memory often implies devices which are random-access, fast, evanescent, and relatively expensive. Typical example are Random Access Memories (RAM) put on a microprocessor chip or installed in a computer, such as Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) and Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). In contrast, storage technologies are sometimes defined as sequentially accessed, slow, permanent, and inexpensive. Classical examples are magnetic Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and flash memory based on a floating gate FET cell. It should be noted however, that the distinction between memory and storage is fluid; moreover, new emerging nonvolatile memory technologies may considerably reduce the separation between memory and storage. For example, storage-class memory is emerging as a new technology with attributes of both memory and storage devices [1].

Current baseline memory technologies include dynamic random-access memory, static random-access memory, and flash memory based on a floating gate FET structure. Because all new memory concepts attempt to mimic and improve on the capabilities of a present day memory technology, ...