Invited talk: Nano-electro-mechanical memory technology for future compact and ultra-low-power integrated systems

As demand for mobile and compact computing devices increases in the digital information age, the need for low-power, low-cost nonvolatile memory (NVM) increases. To overcome the challenges of high programming voltages and/or currents, slow programming speed, and small sensing margin for conventional NVM technology, a simple electro-mechanical diode cell design recently has been proposed and demonstrated [1]. This presentation will review the cell structure and operation, and discuss the scalability and reliability of this technology. A nanoscale (sub-100 nm) electro-mechanical (NEM) NVM technology is projected to offer significant advantages in speed (sub-ns programming time) and power consumption (<; 1 fJ program/erase energy) over other established and emerging NVM technologies, and hence shows promise for future ultra-low-power memory applications.