Other New Technologies – The Memory Guy Blog

A Very Revealing ULTRARAM Update

Contributor Ron Neale returns to The Memory Guy blog with a deeper analysis of the University of Lancaster’s ULTRARAM, which was first announced relatively recently, in early 2020. This post includes his revealing interchange with the university’s Professor Manus Hayne, a key member of the ULTRARAM program, in which the professor indicates that GaAs ICs and Chiplets might be the way ahead for this technology.

Ron tells me that this is the first mention that he is aware of for Continue reading “A Very Revealing ULTRARAM Update”

Emerging Memories After Optane

Now that Intel is exiting the Optane market what will happen to the market for new memory technologies? This is an interesting question that The Memory Guy has focused considerable attention over the past few years. In a nutshell, the market will continue to develop, but at a slower pace, with the bulk of revenue growth going to memories embedded into SoCs.

Even so, the market will grow significantly, with revenues reaching Continue reading “Emerging Memories After Optane”

CeRAM: Some Significant New Insights

In this post contributor Ron Neale takes a very deep look into a new paper published by Symetrix, Cerfe Labs and university researchers which provides fresh insights to the inner workings of CeRAM (Correlated electron RAM), an innovative class of non-volatile memory, where carbon doping of nickel oxide NiO leads to a new type of electronics based electron interaction. With the recently-disclosed material as background, he then adopts the position of Devil’s Advocate to explore alternative views of the memory switching mechanism and to test the proposition that CeRAM is not simply another kind of ReRAM.

A new and recently published paper in APL Materials [1] by a team from the University of Colorado, Symetrix Corporation, Cerfe Labs, The Katholieke University Belgium, Federal University of Rio de Janerio Brazil, and the University of Colorado and more recently [2] have provided us with some important Continue reading “CeRAM: Some Significant New Insights”

New Report: Emerging Memories Take Off

The Memory Guy is pleased to announced the release of a new report by Objective Analysis and Coughlin Associates: Emerging Memories Take Off.

The report is the 2021 update of our popular 2020 emerging memories report, and includes detailed technology profiles of MRAM, ReRAM, FRAM, PCM/XPoint and other technologies, profiles of Continue reading “New Report: Emerging Memories Take Off”

Microchip’s Answer to Emerging Memories

Microchip Technology is now shipping a memory chip that has been designed to provide the most popular features of emerging memory chips without using any non-standard semiconductor technologies. It’s as fast as an SRAM with the nonvolatility of an EEPROM.

Readers may recall that Tom Coughlin and I recently updated Continue reading “Microchip’s Answer to Emerging Memories”

Emerging Memory Market to Hit $36 Billion by 2030

The Memory Guy is pleased to announce the release of a new report co-authored by Objective Analysis and Coughlin Associates named: Emerging Memories Find Their Direction. In this report we show that emerging memories, MRAM, ReRAM, 3D XPoint, and other technologies are well on their way to reach $36 billion of combined revenues by 2030.

The report provides invaluable guidance to Continue reading “Emerging Memory Market to Hit $36 Billion by 2030”

New Report: Emerging Memories Find Their Direction

This year emerging memories are getting a taste of the healthy market that lies ahead. Stand-alone MRAM is being accepted in a broader range of applications, 3D XPoint memory is finally shipping in DIMMs, and embedded MRAM has moved from prototypes into mass production. All signs point to important growth.

The Memory Guy is pleased to announce that Objective Analysis and Coughlin Associates have joined forces to update our study of the emerging memory market in a new Continue reading “New Report: Emerging Memories Find Their Direction”

Podcast: Storage Developer Conference 2018 – Emerging Memories

Almost one year ago Tom Coughlin and The Memory Guy presented the findings of our first emerging memories report at the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) Storage Developers Conference (SDC). The podcast of this presentation has just been made available on the SNIA website.

In the podcast, titled “The Long and Winding Road to Persistent Memories,” Tom and I reviewed leading emerging memory technologies as we had surveyed them for our report.

This is a highly visual presentation, so I would recommend following along with the slides, which can also be downloaded from the SNIA SDC website at HERE. That same page combines the slides and the podcast into a video, so if you’re able to, it might be a good idea to watch the video. If you’re driving as your listening to it, though, then please use the podcast instead!

In the time since that podcast was recorded Tom and I have updated the report to a 2019 edition, which can be Continue reading “Podcast: Storage Developer Conference 2018 – Emerging Memories”

NV Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 3)

In this third part of a five-part series, contributor Ron Neale continues his analysis of selector technologies focusing the nature of the mystery of Forming and a number of the many unanswered questions.

From Part 2 of this series it is very clear that only a detailed and accurate description of threshold switching will allow an assessment of what might be possible during the act of Forming, when the threshold voltage of a selector or memory (if the latter is fabricated in its amorphous state) is reduced in some cases by a factor more than 30% from its as-fabricated value. The problem is that there have been numerous attempts to account for the threshold switching mechanism. In Part 3 of this series I will briefly explore some of threshold switching options and search for any which might be used to account for Forming.

Threshold switching: The key.

If understanding what is happening during threshold switching is the key to what might be possible during that single cycle of threshold switching associated with selector Forming, then there is a possible converse connotation: If we really understand what is happening Continue reading “NV Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 3)”

NV Stacked Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 2)

In this second part of a five-part series contributor Ron Neale continues his analysis of selector technologies focusing the nature of the mystery of Forming and a number of the many unanswered questions.

Thin film selectors, or memory matrix isolation devices, based on chalcogenide glasses, would appear to be the devices of choice as non-volatile memory arrays move towards 3D stacked structures. Considerable progress has been made in finding selector compositions which can be doped to provide a suitable level of structural stability required for the NV memory array application. These were discussed in the first part of this series.

However, there is one known unknown in relation to this type of selector and it is the need for Forming, with the unknown being the physical nature of the changes which occur within the device as a result of the Forming process and any implications those changes might have on reliability and performance. The outward manifestation of Forming is a change in threshold voltage from an initial value to some lower more constant operating value. Not just a minor threshold voltage change but a significant one, a reduction of the order 36% in some cases.

The diagram below illustrates Continue reading “NV Stacked Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 2)”