Scientists at the University of Rochester are pushing the boundaries of computing technology with a groundbreaking development in memory systems.
Published in Nature Electronics, their study introduces a new form of computing memory that is not only fast and capable of storing large amounts of data but also operates with minimal power.
This innovation, crafted in the lab of Stephen M. Wu, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics, combines the strengths of two existing types of memory technology: memristors and phase-change materials.
Both have been eyed as potential successors to current memory systems like DRAM and flash memory, which are widely used in various electronic devices.
However, each of these older technologies comes with its own set of challenges.
Memristors, which work by applying voltage to a thin filament between two electrodes, often face reliability issues.
Phase-change materials, on the other hand, use a lot of power. They operate by melting a material to switch it between a glassy and a crystalline state, each of which has a different electrical resistance.
The team at the University of Rochester ingeniously combined these two technologies to create a new type of memory.
“We’ve developed a two-terminal memristor device that shifts one type of crystal to another,” explains Wu. “These two crystal phases have different resistances, which we use to store memory.”
The secret to their success lies in the use of 2D materials, incredibly thin substances only a single layer of atoms thick. These materials can be strained, or stretched and compressed, to the brink of transforming between two different crystal states.
This transformation can be achieved with relatively little power, a significant advantage over traditional phase-change materials.
“We engineered it by just stretching the material in one direction and compressing it in another,” Wu states.
“This greatly enhances performance. I believe this could be used in home computers, offering ultra-fast and ultra-efficient memory, and could have major impacts on computing as a whole.”
The experimental work, led by Wu and his team of graduate students, was a collaborative effort. They joined forces with researchers from the University of Rochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, including assistant professors Hesam Askari and Sobhit Singh, to pinpoint the optimal ways to strain the material.
While this new phase-change memristor shows a lot of promise, Wu acknowledges that improving its reliability is the next big challenge.
Despite this, the progress made so far is encouraging and points towards a future where computing could be significantly more efficient and powerful, thanks to these atom-thin, power-saving memory systems.
