An acquaintance recently brought to my attention an article in R&D Magazine about some pioneering research on phase-change memories or PCM. The researchers’ findings hold a lot of promise. (R&D Magazine’s article is based upon an original paper in the journal Science.)
A team led by Ritesh Agarwal, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was trying to develop a better understanding of the mechanism behind the phase changes in PCM. The team found that existing programming algorithms that involve melting the material could be replaced with pulses of electrical current that not only would program the cell without heat, but provided an “On” to “Off” resistance ratio of 2-3 orders of magnitude, which renders the cell significantly easier to read, especially in the presence of noise. This effectively makes memory chip design Continue reading “A New Way to Build Phase-Change Memory (PCM)”
