Session 9: Memory technology — phase-change and unified memory

The session includes six papers that describe most recent Phase change memory and unified memory. The first paper by Shih et al., from IBM and Macronix reports about the retention loss mechanism in phase change memory (PCM) devices, attributing the normal fail by growth from amorphous/crystalline GST boundary and the tail distribution fail by nucleation and growth. The second paper by Im et al., from Samsung Electronics demonstrates a new confined PCM structure, obtained by filling a 7.5nm dash (corresponding to sub 20nm technology node) with CVD deposited phase change material. The third paper by Lavizzari et al.,., from Politecnico di Milano addresses transient effects in PCM devices, presenting a new fluctuation-based model able to predict the switching and delay times affecting the programming speed and the read disturb. The fourth paper by Fantini et al., from Numonyx analyzes the low frequency 1/f noise in PCM devices, providing a physical model for the amorphous phase-change material based on the Poole-Frenkel transport and Fermi energy fluctuation. The fifth paper by Choi et al.,., from KAIST demonstrates a novel Dopant Segregated Schottky Barrier (DSSB) Finfet SONOS, which can be operated either as a high-speed non volatile NAND Flash memory or as a capacitorless DRAM performances. The sixth paper by Han et al.,., from KAIST presents a novel fusion memory based on a combination of an ONO dielectric and a band-engineered floating body FinFET, which is proposed as a new paradigm of memory technology.