How Do You Make a ReRAM Work?

I/V Curve for Panasonic's ReRAM Select DiodeDuring this week’s International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) I learned some very valuable information about memories built using crosspoint matrices.

Since ISSCC is a conference at which you meet the best and brightest minds in the industry it should come as no surprise that I was able to meet with several of the most forward-thinking industry luminaries.  One of them explained to me a very fundamental difficulty with resistive RAMs (ReRAMs): These devices require a forward current to be programmed to a “1” and a reverse current to be set to a zero.  This goes against the ideal crosspoint memory design in which a bit would consist of nothing more than a diode in series with a memory element.  By inserting a diode, the current can only run in one direction, so a bit can be programmed or it can be erased, but not both.  This is called Continue reading “How Do You Make a ReRAM Work?”