Moving Away from Silicon: The Role of Interconnect in New Memory Technologies

New non-volatile memory concepts are based on non-Si materials, enabling new cell integration schemes. Memory elements are integrated in-between the first interconnect layers for realizing smaller cell sizes. New rectifying materials allow full decoupling from the substrate and 3-D stacking of cross-point memory arrays, moving more functionality into the back-end, and changing the role of interconnect from a passive to an active network. 3-D stacking is also pursued for Si-based memories using multiple active Si layers, with new contact technology challenges.