Fudan University's Breakthrough in Ultrafast Non-Volatile Storage Technology
TapTechNews August 13th news, according to the official news of Fudan University today, the rapid development of artificial intelligence urgently needs high-speed non-volatile storage technology. The programming speed of the current mainstream non-volatile flash memory is at the level of hundreds of microseconds, which cannot support the application requirements. The previous research of the Zhou Peng - Liu Chunsen team of Fudan University shows that the two-dimensional semiconductor structure can increase the speed by more than a thousand times and realize the disruptive nanosecond-level ultrafast storage flash memory. However, how to achieve scale integration and move towards practical applications is extremely challenging.
Starting from the interface engineering, the Fudan University team verified the 1-Kb ultrafast flash memory array integration verification for the first time in the world and proved that the ultrafast characteristics can be extended to the sub-10-nanometer scale. At 5 p.m. Beijing time on August 12th, the relevant results were published in the international top journal Nature Electronics under the title of The Scalable Integration Process for Ultrafast Two-Dimensional Flash Memory (DOI: 10.1038/s41928-024-01229-6).
It is introduced that the team has developed a super-interface engineering technology and achieved a heterointerface with atomic-level flatness in the large-scale two-dimensional flash memory. Combined with the atomic-level precision characterization technology, it is verified that the integration process is significantly better than the international level. Through strict DC storage window and AC pulse storage performance tests, it is confirmed that in the 1-Kb storage scale of the two-dimensional flash memory, the yield is as high as 98.4% at the nanosecond-level non-volatile programming speed, and this yield is already higher than the 89.5% yield requirement for flash memory manufacturing in the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.
At the same time, the research team has developed a self-aligning process that does not rely on advanced lithography equipment. Combined with the original innovative ultrafast storage stacked electric field design theory, the ultrafast flash memory device with a channel length of 8 nanometers has been successfully achieved, which is the current shortest-channel flash memory device and has broken through the physical size limit of silicon-based flash memory (about 15 nanometers). Supported by the atomic-level thin-layer channel, this ultra-small-size device has 20-nanosecond ultrafast programming, 10-year non-volatile, 100,000-cycle life and multi-state storage performance, which is expected to promote the industrialization of the ultrafast disruptive flash memory technology.
TapTechNews noticed that the researcher Liu Chunsen from the National Key Laboratory of Integrated Circuits and Systems of Fudan University and the Institute of Frontier Technologies for Chips and Systems, and the professor Zhou Peng from the School of Microelectronics are the corresponding authors of the paper, the researcher Liu Chunsen and the doctoral students Jiang Yongbo and Cao Zhenyuan are the first authors. The re search work is supported by the key research and development plan of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the important leading talent plan of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shanghai Basic Special Zone Plan, the Shanghai Qiming Star and other projects, as well as the support of the Ministry of Education's innovation platform.