Low-Cost Radiation-Hard Nonvolatile Random-Access Memory

ABSTRACT: PrivaTran will measure the radiation tolerance of new resistive memory materials and will design and fabricate advanced memristor-based architectures for nonvolatile random access memory (RAM) applications that are suitable for aerospace systems. The requirements for proper memory element isolation, programming voltage drive and current sense circuitry will be determined by circuit analysis. Prototype memristor-based memory arrays will be fabricated in a commercial semiconductor manufacturing foundry and radiation testing will be done to measure the radiation hardness of the design. Performance will be optimized to meet technical program objectives. Manufacturability and scalability will be investigated, and manufacturing process technologies will be identified that enable high-density data storage solutions for aerospace and defense applications. BENEFIT: The benefits of the proposed memristor architecture and materials include low-power nonvolatile memory operation, inherent radiation tolerance, good data retention over large temperature extremes, compatibility with three-dimensional (3D) memory architecture, fast switching speeds, large ON/OFF dynamic range, vacuum compatibility, highly-localized switching, good immunity to EMI, and unipolar switching, thus enabling a low-cost, high-density, memristor-based RAM that can be directly inserted into current and future Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) and Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) semiconductor manufacturing platforms to provide a solution for aerospace and defense systems with the combined performance of conventional hard disk, RAM and FLASH memory technology.