Demand for ultra-small, fast memories with high capacity is ever increasing
but, because of architectural limitations, downscaling to dimensions smaller
than 45 nm has become challenging. Now, Jia Fu, Navab Singh and co-workers at
the A*STAR Institute
of Microelectronics in Singapore have developed a new type of nanowire-based
memory-dubbed TAHOS-which may circumvent this problem1.
Until now, one of the most successful types of non-volatile memories has been
‘flash’ memory. In this device, the information-in this case
electrical charge-is stored in each memory cell on a floating gate that
is programmed or erased by applying a voltage to a control gate. The information
is then read by passing a current between the source and drain contacts through
a channel situated under the floating gate, in a setup resembling a standard
field-effect transistor.
Click
here to read the full press release
Posted January 19th, 2010
|
