1. ULTRARAM: A Low‐Energy, High‐Endurance, Compound‐Semiconductor Memory on Silicon
- Author
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Peter D. Hodgson, Dominic Lane, Peter J. Carrington, Evangelia Delli, Richard Beanland, and Manus Hayne
- Subjects
compound semiconductor on silicon ,molecular beam epitaxy ,nonvolatile memory ,triple‐barrier resonant tunneling heterostructure ,Electric apparatus and materials. Electric circuits. Electric networks ,TK452-454.4 ,Physics ,QC1-999 - Abstract
Abstract ULTRARAM is a nonvolatile memory with the potential to achieve fast, ultralow‐energy electron storage in a floating gate accessed through a triple‐barrier resonant tunneling heterostructure. Here its implementation is reported on a Si substrate; a vital step toward cost‐effective mass production. Sample growth using molecular beam epitaxy commences with deposition of an AlSb nucleation layer to seed the growth of a GaSb buffer layer, followed by the III–V memory epilayers. Fabricated single‐cell memories show clear 0/1 logic‐state contrast after ≤10 ms duration program/erase pulses of ≈2.5 V, a remarkably fast switching speed for 10 and 20 µm devices. Furthermore, the combination of low voltage and small device capacitance per unit area results in a switching energy that is orders of magnitude lower than dynamic random access memory and flash, for a given cell size. Extended testing of devices reveals retention in excess of 1000 years and degradation‐free endurance of over 107 program/erase cycles, surpassing very recent results for similar devices on GaAs substrates.
- Published
- 2022
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