Original title: Huazhong University of Science and Technology successfully developed the world's lowest power consumption phase change memory: a thousand times lower than mainstream products

On January 20, it was learned from the School of Integrated Circuits of Huazhong University of Science and Technology thatThe academy team developed the world's lowest power-consuming phase change memory, which consumes a thousand times less power than mainstream products.

It is understood that in the new memory, phase change memory (PCM) is the most compatible with the CMOS process, the most mature storage technology.

In 2015, Intel and Micron introduced Optane 3D phase change memory chips, which are a thousand times faster and last than solid-state flash drives, and their 3D stacking technology also makes the capacity ten times higher.

However, due to the need to melt and cool the storage medium during the phase change process, the power consumption of the phase change memory is extremely high and the heat generation is severe, which limits the further improvement of the storage capacity and greatly increases its manufacturing cost.

Therefore, reducing the power consumption of phase change memory will facilitate further increase the memory data density and improve its core competitiveness in the semiconductor storage market, in addition, reducing power consumption can improve memory heat dissipation problems and reduce thermal crosstalk between adjacent cells, thereby improving device stability and overall performance.

At present, the erasing and writing power consumption of a single phase change memory unit of the most advanced tens of nanometer processes reaches about 40pJ, and the lab-prepared 100-nanometer-sized device consumes more than 1000pJ.

In order to solve the bottleneck problem of high power consumption in phase change memory,The Institute of Information Storage Materials and Devices (ISMD) of the School of Integrated Circuits of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and the Materials Innovation and Design Center (CAID) of Xi'an Jiaotong University have developed a phase change memory with a mesh amorphous structure, with power consumption reaching less than 0.05pJ, which is 1,000 times lower than the power consumption of mainstream products。

In addition to low power consumption, this phase change memory has the advantages of good consistency and long life.