Nonvolatile, high density, high performance phase-change memory

Abstract

An electrically reprogrammable resistor approach has been developed as a basis for a new nonvolatile memory that is potentially denser, faster, and easier to make than Dynamic RAM (DRAM). It relies on structural phase transitions induced by nanosecond-scale heating and cooling of small volumes of chalcogenide films within the memory cell. Initial target markets include FLASH memory, embedded memory, and DRAM.