R&D: Sub-10 fJ/bit Radiation-Hard Nanoelectromechanical NVM

Nature Communications has published an article written by Yong-Bok Lee, School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea, Min-Ho Kang, National NanoFab Center (NNFC), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea, Pan-Kyu Choi, School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Ltd, Fab 21, Phoenix, AZ, USA, Su-Hyun Kim, School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea, and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, 1, Samsungjeonja-ro, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, 18448, Republic of Korea, Tae-Soo Kim, So-Young Lee, and Jun-Bo Yoon, School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea .

Abstract: “With the exponential growth of the semiconductor industry, radiation-hardness has become an indispensable property of memory devices. However, implementation of radiation-hardened semiconductor memory devices inevitably requires various radiation-hardening technologies from the layout level to the system level, and such technologies incur a significant energy overhead. Thus, there is a growing demand for emerging memory devices that are energy-efficient and intrinsically radiation-hard. Here, we report a nanoelectromechanical non-volatile memory (NEM-NVM) with an ultra-low energy consumption and radiation-hardness. To achieve an ultra-low operating energy of less than 10 fJbit−1, we introduce an out-of-plane electrode configuration and electrothermal erase operation. These approaches enable the NEM-NVM to be programmed with an ultra-low energy of 2.83 fJbit−1. Furthermore, due to its mechanically operating mechanisms and radiation-robust structural material, the NEM-NVM retains its superb characteristics without radiation-induced degradation such as increased leakage current, threshold voltage shift, and unintended bit-flip even after 1 Mrad irradiation.“