ARM Holdings is apparently snuffling around a new non-volatile memory technology that could scale further and perform better than flash memory and resistive RAM (ReRAM).
Carlos Paz de Araujo, a professor at the University of Colorado who is the leading advocate for development of CeRAM said he has interested in the technology from ARM.
Speaking to Electronics 360, de Araujo said that ARM was supporting his research into a non-filamentary, non-volatile memory technology based on the metal-insulator Mott transition in nickel oxide and other transition metal oxides (TMOs).
Correlated-Electron RAM (CeRAM) can be used to build devices as small as 5 nanometers using an atomic force microscope. Recently de Araujo came up with some sexy "new switch" capabilities of the device. To date CeRAM devices have only been fabricated at dimensions of about 0.8 micron.
Typically R&D that is beyond the scaling of mainstream silicon manufacturing processes and materials has taken many years. But Professor Araujo has been working on the technology for already for five years and there is a large body of resistive RAM (ReRAM) research in place globally as non-volatile memory has been a hotly pursued research topic for several years.
CeRAM differs from other ReRAM developments in that it does not depend on atomic transport to make and break filaments, which brings with it issues of thermal dependence and reliability.
It uses a metal-insulator transition that occurs throughout the crystal structure based on quantum mechanical electron correlation effects,.
This can be considered as a quantum mechanical tuning of electron bands in the material due to electron-electron effects within atoms.
ARM is becoming increasingly relevant to achieving energy-efficiency goals for future mobile and Internet of Fings (IoT).
