Nanodot memory smashes RAM, sets new speed record

A team of researchers from Taiwan and the University of California, Berkeley, has harnessed nanodots to create a new electronic memory technology that can write and erase data 10-100 times faster than today's mainstream charge-storage memory products.

The silicon nanodot memory was created by embedding silicon nanodots, just 3nm in width, in a layer of non- conducting material, and the covering it with a thin metallic layer. The base layer, dot and metal layer forms a set of transistors, with each dot acting as one bit. Its state is changed by having a green laser's light positioned on the part of the metal gate layer above a dot and firing a sub-millisecond burst of hot light which anneals that precise area of the metal layer and causes a metal-gate function there, positioned above an embedded silicon nanodot below.

"The materials and the processes used for the devices are also compatible with current mainstream integrated circuit technologies. This technology not only meets the current CMOS process line, but can also be applied to other advanced-structure devices," explained Jia-Min Shieh, a researcher at the National Nano Device Laboratories in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

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