Development of 100 Billion Times-Usable Advanced F-RAM Material

The research team of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) successfully developed the new material which can make F-RAM Memory Devices of a superior performance whose information is not lost despite 100 billion times of repeated writing and reading.

Unlike D RAM which information is lost through repeated reading and writing of several hundreds times, F RAM is a nonvolatile memory devicel which can store information semi-permanently.

Jang Hyeong-Myeong, the professor of Dept. of Advanced Materials Engineering, POSTECH said on August 14, “The research team developed an epoch-making thin film for F RAM which can read and write information semi-permanently, and a spontaneous polarization is very large, by using the new material of Bismuth - Neodymium - Titanium series”. The spontaneous polarization is a size of electric dipole occurred per unit area. As the spontaneous polarization is larger in F RAM, it can transmit a signal exactly. This research result will be published in ‘Physical Review Letters (issue of August)’.

Such as Samsung Electronics, TOSHIBA and Hitachi, semiconductor industries have mainly used PZT (Plumbum- Zirconium - Titanium) and SBT (Strontium - Bismuth - Titanium) as the materials for the development of F RAM Memory. However, PZT has disadvantage which loses information through repeated read and writing, and SBT has disadvantage in making only in the high temperature of approx. 700℃.

Professor Jang said, “When we develop the research result, Korea will take leadership in a field of F RAM.”

Memory cell of the new system which uses a direction of the electric dipole induced by AC Electric Field of high frequency. It is being watched out of ‘Next Generation Memory Cells’ because it is nonvolatile and has small power consumption as well as it can read information at high speed.

dongho@donga.com