IBM, prosperous and great strange to dream of, up to, research and develop group introduce new the intersection of storage chip and technology together jointly
December 12, 2006, the news of San Francisco - -Come from IBM, prosperous and great and strange and dream of Damien's scientist jointly releases their common research results today, such and new technology expected to replace, use for computer and consumption electronic product extensively already computer storage ' Such as digital camera and walkie music player) Flashing memory chip.
The new research results indicate " Phase change " The prospect of the memory is very bright, the processing rate of this memory is far faster than ShanCun, and size too light much than flashing memory, thus enable high density " non-volatile " in the future The appearances of the memorizer and electronic device with better function become possible. The nonvolatile memory does not need to make use of electricity to keep information. Through combining non-volatile and excellent performance and reliability perfectly together, the technology of phase change has also opened up the road in order to face and move the applied general storage.
Come from the scientists of three companies and study the central lab to design, make and show the memory prototype of phase change in two IBMs located in American things coast together: It exchange by speed 500 times faster than flashing memory too,and load power consumptions machine format half of flashing memory. The cross-sectional area of this device is only 3*20 nanometers, far smaller than the current flashing memory, and the chip manufacturing capacity is identical with the 2015 of anticipated industry. The new achievement still shows, when the memorizer size of phase change decreases with the Moore law, its technology will still improve constantly, this is different from flashing memory characteristic.
"These achievements fully prove, the prospect of the phase change memorizer will be very bright, "Scientific and technological executive vice president T.C in IBM academy. Chen Dr. say " a lot of people expect, flashing memory will dwindle, restrain severe size from in the near future. Nowadays, we put out the storage medium of new phase change, even the minification deeply of the volume, this material will have very high characteristic too. This will lead to the fact finally the phase change memorizer is very attractive to employing. "
This kind of new materials is a kind of complicated semiconducting alloy, lying in IBM research center of Almadé n with state San Jose to born through deep studying. This material is designed in the mathematical simulation specially used in the memory cell of phase change.
"A lot of new developing memory technology, such as the intersection of phase change and memorizer, strange to dream of, up to advanced important element to store technological development, "The senior vice president Wilhelm Beinvogl doctor of technological innovation of Damien joint-stock company says that strange to dream of, "we have already shown the potentiality of this phase change memorizer pygmy in volume, can find out, phase change memorizer will play a very important role in the future memory system. "
Electric electronic engineering SCTE that the technological details of this research results will be held in San Francisco this week (IEEE) International electronic device conference of 2006 (IEDM) Pay go on show ' Thesis 30.3: " adopt the ultrathin phase change of GeSb to bridge the memorizer " --Y.C.Chen,et al., December 13 Wednesday morning) . This thesis is IEEE international solid condition electronic circuit conference that will hold in San Francisco in February of 2007 soon too " IEDM technological bright spot of 2006 " One of the five theses chosen at the meeting.
"It is devoted to the development of the nonvolatile memory since establishing that prosperous and great, "The prosperous great electronic president Miin Wu says, "the approval of IEDM and ISSCC proves we and IBM and strange Damien's joint efforts of dreaming of have already succeeded in the memorizer technical field of phase change. Besides the technical break-through of the phase change memorizer, we are also developing new NAND flashing memory technology - -BE-SONOS, one faces applied solution of data storage. We have been devoted to offering the high-performance easy not losing memorizer solution of advancement to our customer all the time. "
Computer memory cell adopted in two kinds of easy recognition states ' Digital " 0 " Or " 1 " )A framework changed rapidly stores information. Present most memorizer according to there are electric charges that are recorded machine formatly in the limited area of memory cell of minification. Industry deal with fastest most economic memory design, adopt, leak SRAM of memory cell while being inherent respectively ' Static memory) And DRAM (dynamic memory) ,So, they need to supply power continuously, if is DRAM, be breaking constantly. Once the power is cut off, these " volatility " The memorizer will be lost the information that they store.
Most flashing memory used at present has a part which preserves the electric charge - -" floating gate " ,Its design feature will not be let out. So, the flashing memory can keep its data stored and need to supply power only while reading, writing or wiping off information. This kind of " non-volatile " The characteristic makes the flashing memory used in the battery-opwered portable electronics extensively. It is a applied great advantage of general computer too that the non-volatile data are kept, but have thousandfold slowly more than the read-in data on DRAM or SRAM in read-in data on the flashing memory. Moreover the intersection of flashing memory and in write about 100,000 times right away know the degradation but also will not become it reliable no longer memory cell. It is not the question that this should use to a lot of consumption, but to those application that must be frequently rewritten, if the computer main internal memory or abbreviated code or storage system of the network comes to speak, this will bring the problem. The third problem flashing, storing in and facing in the future is, according to the Moore law, the cell design of Off-The-Shelf memory is while entering process for preparing of 45 nanometers, it is very difficult to continue keeping the non-volatile characteristic.
It is extremely important to reach the phase change memorizer achievement made together with the strange dream by IBM and prosperously and greatly, because it introduce a new kind of non-volatile phase-change material (change flashing memory of the velocity ratio to be 500 times faster not merely, half of less than flashing memory of power consumption) ,The most important thing is, when it is 22 at more least nanometers that its size reduces to, can still realize these characteristics, far lead the flashing memory of the floating gate.
The core of memorizer of this phase change is a small semiconducting alloy membrane, it can be in the quick switching of ordered crystalline phase place and unordered one, non- crystalline phase place with high resistance with low resistance. Because does not need electric energy to keep the any kind of phase place of this kind of material, so, the phase change memorizer is non-volatile.
The phase place of this material is by pulsing range of electricity and lasting time setting used for heating this material. When the material is heated to higher than the fusing point, the high-energy atom of the alloy will move everywhere, carry on random arrangement. The unexpected stop electric pulse will make the atom freeze on the stochastic non- crystalline phase place. Use the stop pulse slowly of time of about 10 nanoseconds, the atom will have enough time a crystalline phase place in order as their prior choice of rearrangement.
It is a kind of germanium antimony alloy to store the material of apparatus newly ( GeSb) ,Accede to even among them ' Mix) Drib others element their characteristics in order to enhancement. What-if study makes researchers finely tune and optimize the characteristic of this material, and study its crystalline behavior. The new material composition has been already application for patent.
About strange to dream of, up to
Strange to dream of Damien joint-stock company is the second largest DRAM memory products supplier in the world (rank the second in the world in the first half of 2006 calendar years, study the prediction of the company Gartner Dataquest according to the trade) . After Great Britain flew and insulted the scientific and technological joint-stock company to strip out, strange to dream of, up to on will it be August 9 2006 listing on American policy certificate exchange will it be May 1 2006. The net sales amount of the company in 2006 fiscal years is 3,810 million euro, nearly there are 12,000 staff in the whole world. Have 5 the intersection of 300mm and the intersection of wafer and factory in 3 continents, run 5 large-scale to research and develop organization, located in Dresden research and development centre. The company is a leading supplier facing DRAM memory products of PC and server manufacturer, the present developing focus is to employ its energy-conserving ditch groove technology to produce and face the figure, move and consume the applied products. If want to understand more information, please log on www.qimonda.com.
If want to understand more information, please get in touch:
IBM -- Michael Ross: 408-927-1283 (U.S.A.) ; [email protected]
Prosperous macro - Michelle Chang: 886-3-578-6688 X71233 (Taiwan) ; [email protected]
Strange to dream of Damien - Zhou Yi : 8621-61019200 (Shanghai) ; [email protected]
