Infineon licenses non-volatile technology
PMC was developed at Arizona State University to replace traditional charge-based memory cells. The cell structure consists of a nanostructured solid electrolyte placed between two metal lines. Under easily controlled conditions, a conductive bridge is formed inside the glassy material, substantially reducing the resistance between the lines. The conductive bridge can be removed or re-created at DRAM or better speeds with excellent endurance characteristics, it is reported. Since there is no stored charge in the cells, nonvolatile data retention exceeds the traditional 10-year limit associated with nonvolatile memory now in production using considerably lower programming voltage and current than incumbent technologies.
Dr Michael Kozicki, founder of Axon and inventor of the technology, comments: "Because of the DRAM-like sizes of the cells, we believe that the two most likely discrete memory applications for the technology are single chip replacements for the multiple memory chips in cell phones and also low-power memory in large memory arrays. While these high-volume applications are extremely exciting, we believe that the compatibility between this technology and CMOS logic processes also makes PMC an ideal non-volatile embedded process."
Infineon has announced conductive bridging RAM (CBRAM) - Infineon's designation for PMC-like memory - as one of the five technologies it has selected for further development.
