Symetrix announced today it will continue its development of CeRAM nonvolatile memories and other technologies in collaboration with Cerfe Labs, the recently formed ARM spin-out.

CeRAM harnesses the quantum phase transition known to exist in carbon-doped transition metal oxide (TMO) materials, a transition that produces a huge change in resistance due to a voltage and current induced shift in the occupancy of electron orbitals surrounding each metal ion.

Other TMO-based resistive memories being developed elsewhere rely upon the formation and rupture of conductive filaments in the memory element, a mechanism that has proven difficult to reliably control at advanced geometries.

CeRAM exhibits robust storage from high temperatures (4000C) to lower temperatures (< 20K) due to robust nonvolatile storage derived from its quantum mechanism and is the first memory to operate in this wide temperature range without degradation.

Power consumption is very small with programming voltages at 0.6v and 1.2v and a read voltage below 0.2v (with even lower voltages being demonstrated using a different TMO).

Read endurance cycling exceeds 1012 cycles. CeRAM technology is being prepared through a contract development with IMEC in Belgium for advanced manufacturing on 300mm tooling with process integration compatible with sub-14nm CMOS process nodes.

Symetrix, led by Prof. Carlos Paz de Araujo of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, previously developed and introduced ferroelectric random access (FeRAM) memories that have been successfully commercialized by its licensees.

Under the joint development with Cerfe Labs, Symetrix will continue its development of ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFET) based on novel materials and designs for the memory element. Symetrix will announce with Cerfe Labs an FeFET that anneals at 3500-4000, a requirement for deep technology nodes, and operates under electric fields less that 10% of the current FeFETs under development.  The Symetrix/ Cerfe Labs development targets the replacement of discrete NAND flash and embedded SRAM due to its potential for higher densities and speed and lower power.

“CeRAM will usher in an era of quantum devices based on the practical application of the correlated electron phenomenon and reversible phase change,” says Prof. Araujo.  “Further, we have demonstrated a solution to FeFET that overcomes the reported limits to scaling and high temperature processing.  Both memory technologies rely thepioneering materials technology and device physics which have been Symetrix’s distinction as a technology supplier for over 34 years.”

“I am excited to continue our partnership with Symetrix, now as a focused start up”, said Greg Yeric, CTO of Cerfe Labs.  “Our team began working with Symetrix several years ago while at Arm, where we recognized the fundamental promise of CeRAM to significantly advance memory capabilities across a wide swath of end systems.  We look forward to continuing our encouraging progress there, and our collaborations on additional pipeline technologies are equally intriguing.”