R&D: Circuit Level Memory Technologies and Applications Based on 2D Materials

Advanced Materials has published an article written by Jiahui Ma, Hefei Liu,Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089 USA, Ning Yang, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611 USA, Jingyi Zou, Sen Lin,Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 USA, Yuhao Zhang, Center for Power Electronics Systems, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24060 USA, Xu Zhang, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213 USA, Jing Guo, Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611 USA, and Han Wang, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089 USA, and Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90089 USA.

Abstract: “Memory technologies and applications implemented fully or partially using emerging two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted increasing interest in the research community in recent years. Their unique characteristics provide new possibilities for highly integrated circuits with superior performances, low power consumption as well as special functionalities. Here, an overview of progress in 2D material-based memory technologies and applications on the circuit level is presented. In the material growth and fabrication aspects, the advantages and disadvantages of various methods for producing large-scale 2D memory devices in batches are discussed. Reports on 2D material-based integrated memory circuits, from conventional dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), and Flash memory arrays, to emerging memristive crossbar structures, all the way to three-dimensional (3D) monolithic stacking architecture, are systematically reviewed. Comparisons between experimental implementations and theoretical estimations for different integration architectures are given in terms of the critical parameters in 2D memory devices. Attempts to use 2D memory arrays for in-memory computing applications, which are mostly focused on logic-in-memory and neuromorphic computing, are summarized here. Finally, we review the major challenges that impede the large-scale applications of 2D material-based memory, and also give perspectives on possible approaches towards a more reliable system-level fabrication, hopefully shedding some light on future research in this field.“