Startup Plans to Commercialize Correlated Electron RAM (CeRAM)
takyon writes:
Arm Spinout Reveals Correlated-Electron Memory Plans
Earlier this month, a group of eight Arm Research engineers established a startup, Cerfe Labs, to commercialize an experimental memory technology they had been working on for the past five years with Austin-based Symetrix. The technology, called correlated electron RAM (CeRAM), could become a nonvolatile replacement for the fast-access embedded SRAM used in processor high-level cache memory today. Besides being able to hold data in the absence of a power supply, which SRAM cannot do, CeRAM is likely to be considerably smaller than SRAM, potentially easing IC area issues as the industry's ability to keep shrinking transistors reaches its end.
[...] The device itself is just the correlated electron material sandwiched between two electrodes, similar in structure to resistive RAM, phase change RAM, and magnetic RAM but less complex than the latter. And like those three, it is constructed in the metal interconnect layers above the silicon, requiring only one transistor in the silicon layer to access it, as opposed to SRAM's six. [Cerfe Labs' CTO Greg Yeric] says the company has made devices that fit with 7-nanometer CMOS processes and they should be scalable in both size and voltage to 5-nanometers (today's cutting edge).
But it's CeRAM's speed that could make it a good replacement for SRAM. To date, they've made CeRAM with a 2-nanosecond pulse width for writing data, which is on par with what's needed for a processor's L3 cache; Yeric says they expect this speed to improve with development.
The carbon-doped nickel oxide material also has properties that are well beyond what today's nonvolatile memory can do, but they are not as completely proven. For example, CerLab has shown that the device works at temperatures as low as 1.5 kelvins-well beyond what any nonvolatile memory can do, and in range for a role in quantum computing control circuits. In the other direction, they've demonstrated device operation up to 125 C and showed that it retains its bits at up to 400 C. But these figures were limited by the equipment the company had available. What's more, the device's theory of operation suggests that CeRAM should be naturally resistant to ionizing radiation and magnetic field disturbances.
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