Science reports on ER-C Research: “A way to shrink RAM”
29 March 2021
A path towards the further miniaturization of ferroelectric random access memory, FeRAM for short, was described by Dr. Hongchu Du, scientist at ER-C-2, et al. in January this year in the renowned journal “Matter” with the paper “Multiple polarization orders in individual twinned colloidal nanocrystals of centrosymmetric HfO2”. Now, the well-known journal “Science” has also featured a report on this research work which was carried out largely at the ER-C, in its section “Editors’ Choice – This week in other journals”.
FeRAM offers both working memory and data storage in one. This saves on the time and energy needed by conventional computers to transport data between the two units. In addition, the saved data is retained even without a power supply. The write performance and service life of these components are already outstanding and the first FeRAMs in use, for example in chip cards and RFID tags. However, comparatively little data can as yet be stored on a FeRAM, as the space required for storing individual bits is too large. The researchers, led by Hongchu Du, found a new way to reduce the size of FeRAM bits by a factor of more than 100 with the help of high-resolution electron microscope studies at the ER-C.
Further information:
Article in Science: “A way to shrink RAM” in the edition from 12 March 2021
Article: “Towards the Further Miniaturization of FeRAM”, Forschungszentrum Jülich from 2 February 2021
Original publication:
Multiple polarization orders in individual twinned colloidal nanocrystals of centrosymmetric HfO2;
Hongchu Du et al.; Matter, published January 6, 2021, DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2020.12.008