Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 35: Devices

HL 35.3: Talk

Thursday, March 29, 2007, 10:30–10:45, H13

A non-volatile memory device based on self-organized quantum dots — •Andreas Marent, Martin Geller, David Feise, Konstantin Pötschke, and Dieter Bimberg — Institut für Festkörperphysik, TU Berlin, Hardenbergstr. 36, 10623 Berlin

DRAM and Flash are the most important semiconductor memories, both having their advantages and disadvantages in storage/access time and endurance. A future memory cell should combine the advantages of DRAM and Flash to an ultimate memory with long endurance (>10¹⁵ write/erase cycles), long storage time (>10 years), fast write/read access time (<1 ns) and scalability towards single electron functionality yielding ultimately small power consumption.
We present a memory concept based on self-organized quantum dots (QDs) with the potential to fulfill all requirements concerning storage/access time, endurance and scalability [1]. In InAs QDs with Al_0.9Ga_0.1As we demonstrate a hole storage time of seconds at room temperature. Futher enhanced storage time up to 10 years is expected for different material combinations such as In(Ga)Sb in AlAs. Futhermore, an average time for hole capture and relaxation at room temperature of 0.3 ps is observed for InAs/GaAs QDs . Thus, in comparison to a DRAM cell, a four order of magnitude faster write time is possible in such a QD-based memory.
M. Geller, A. Marent, and D. Bimberg, Auf Halbleiter-Nanostrukturen basierender nicht-flüchtiger Speicher "A non-volatile memory based on semiconductor nanostructure", CPT patent application, submitted (2006).