New‑Generation Ferroelectric AlScN Materials

Ferroelectrics have great potential in the field of nonvolatile memory due to programmable polarization states by external electric field in nonvolatile manner.However,complementary metal oxide semiconductor compatibility and uniformity of ferroelectric performance after size scaling have always been two thorny issues hindering practical application of ferroelectric memory devices.The emerging ferroelectricity of wurtzite structure nitride offers opportunities to circumvent the dilemma.This review covers the mechanism of ferroelectricity and domain dynamics in ferroelectric AlScN films.The performance optimization of AlScN films grown by different techniques is summarized and their applications for memories and emerging in-memory computing are illustrated.Finally,the challenges and perspectives regarding the commercial avenue of ferroelectric AlScN are discussed.

High-performance amorphous In–Ga–Zn–O thin-film transistor nonvolatile memory with a novel p-SnO/n-SnO_(2) heterojunction charge trapping stack

Amorphous In–Ga–Zn–O(a-IGZO)thin-film transistor(TFT)memories with novel p-SnO/n-SnO_(2) heterojunction charge trapping stacks(CTSs)are investigated comparatively under a maximum fabrication temperature of 280℃.Compared to a single p-SnO or n-SnO_(2) charge trapping layer(CTL),the heterojunction CTSs can achieve electrically programmable and erasable characteristics as well as good data retention.Of the two CTSs,the tunneling layer/p-SnO/nSnO_(2)/blocking layer architecture demonstrates much higher program efficiency,more robust data retention,and comparably superior erase characteristics.The resulting memory window is as large as 6.66 V after programming at 13 V/1 ms and erasing at-8 V/1 ms,and the ten-year memory window is extrapolated to be 4.41 V.This is attributed to shallow traps in p-SnO and deep traps in n-SnO_(2),and the formation of a built-in electric field in the heterojunction.

烘丝前后烟丝多元酸和高级脂肪酸变化研究

烟草中的多元酸对抽吸品质有重要影响,它们能与生物碱结合成盐,调节烟草中碱性成分的挥发性.高级脂肪酸可分成饱和与不饱和两类,饱和脂肪酸能增加烟气的脂肪味、腊味并使之圆和;不饱和脂肪酸增加烟气的丰满度和粗糙感[1].……

Improvement of Electrical Properties of the Ge2Sb2Te5 Film by Doping Si for Phase-Change Random Access Memory

Si-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 films have been prepared by dc magnetron co-sputtering with Ge2Sb2Te5 and Si targets. The addition of Si in the Ge2Sb2Te5 film results in the increase of both crystallization temperature and phasetransition temperature from face-centred-cubic （fcc） phase to hexagonal （hex） phase. The resistivity of the Ge2Sb2Te5 film shows a significant increase with the Si doping. When doping 11.8 at.% of Si in the film, the resistivity after 460℃ annealing increases from 1 to 11 mΩ.cm and dynamic resistance increase from 64 to 99Ω compared to the undoped Ge2Sb2Te5 film. This is very helpful to writing current reduction of phase-change random access memory.

Nonvolatile photorefractive properties in triply doped stoichiometric Mg:Fe:Mn:LiTaO_3 crystals

We have grown triply doped Mg:Fe:Mn:LiTaO3 crystals with near stoichiometry using the top seeded solution growth technique. The defect structure was investigated by infrared absorption spectra and Curie temperature. Using a blue laser as the source, excellent photorefractive properties were obtained. Nonvolatile holographic storage properties were investigated using the dual wavelength technique. We got a very high fixed diffraction efficiency and nonvolatile holographic storage sensitivity. The blue light has more than enough energy to excite holes of deep(Mn) and shallow(Fe) trap centers with the same phase, which enhance dramatically the blue photorefractive properties and the nonvolatile holographic storage. Mg2+ ion is no longer damage resistant at blue laser, but enhances photorefractive characteristics.

Nonvolatile holographic storage in triply doped LiNbO_3:Hf,Fe,Mn crystals

It has been suggested to use LiNbO3：Fe,Mn crystal for solving the problem of information volatility during the read-out process with all-optical facilities,but the minute order response time is far from the requirements for the real-time information processing.We present the nonvolatile holographic storage properties of LiNbO3：Hf,Fe,Mn.The response time is shortened to 5.0 s,and the sensitivity S is enhanced to 0.22 cm/J in this triply doped crystal.The experimental results show that the HfO2 doping threshold is 5.0 mol.%.Thus it seems that we have found a useful tetravalent dopant for LiNbO3：Fe,Mn that can obviously improve the nonvolatile holographic recording sensitivity.

Low-power emerging memristive designs towards secure hardware systems for applications in internet of things

Emerging memristive devices offer enormous advantages for applications such as non-volatile memories and inmemory computing(IMC),but there is a rising interest in using memristive technologies for security applications in the era of internet of things(IoT).In this review article,for achieving secure hardware systems in IoT,lowpower design techniques based on emerging memristive technology for hardware security primitives/systems are presented.By reviewing the state-of-the-art in three highlighted memristive application areas,i.e.memristive non-volatile memory,memristive reconfigurable logic computing and memristive artificial intelligent computing,their application-level impacts on the novel implementations of secret key generation,crypto functions and machine learning attacks are explored,respectively.For the low-power security applications in IoT,it is essential to understand how to best realize cryptographic circuitry using memristive circuitries,and to assess the implications of memristive crypto implementations on security and to develop novel computing paradigms that will enhance their security.This review article aims to help researchers to explore security solutions,to analyze new possible threats and to develop corresponding protections for the secure hardware systems based on low-cost memristive circuit designs.

Investigation of resistive switching behaviours in WO_3-based RRAM devices

In this paper, a WO3-based resistive random access memory device composed of a thin film of WO3 sandwiched between a copper top and a platinum bottom electrodes is fabricated by electron beam evaporation at room temperature. The reproducible resistive switching, low power consumption, multilevel storage possibility, and good data retention characteristics demonstrate that the Cu/WO3/Pt memory device is very promising for future nonvolatile memory applications. The formation and rupture of localised conductive filaments is suggested to be responsible for the observed resistive switching behaviours.

Nonvolatile Resistive Switching and Physical Mechanism in LaCrO3 Thin Films

Polycrystalline LaCrO3（LCO） thin films are deposited on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrates by pulsed laser deposition and used as the switching material to construct resistive random access memory devices. The unipolar resistive switching（RS） behavior in the Au/LCO/Pt devices exhibits a high resistance ratio of ~104 between the high resistance state（HRS） and low resistance state（LRS） and exhibits excellent endurance/retention characteristics.The conduction mechanism of the HRS in the high voltage range is dominated by the Schottky emission, while the Ohmic conduction dictates the LRS and the low voltage range of HRS. The RS behavior in the Au/LCO/Pt devices can be understood by the formation and rupture of conducting filaments consisting of oxygen vacancies,which is validated by the temperature dependence of resistance and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results.Further analysis shows that the reset current IR and reset power PR in the reset processes exhibit a scaling law with the resistance in LRS（R0）, which indicates that the Joule heating effect plays an essential role in the RS behavior of the Au/LCO/Pt devices.

Total Dose Radiation Tolerance of Phase Change Memory Cell with GeSbTe Alloy

Phase change memory （PCM） cell array is fabricated by a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process and the subsequent special fabrication technique. A chalcogenide Ge2Sb2Te5 film in thickness 50hm deposited by rf magnetron sputtering is used as storage medium for the PCM cell. Large snap-back effect is observed in current-voltage characteristics, indicating the phase transition from an amorphous state （higher resistance state） to the crystalline state （lower resistance state）. The resistance of amorphous state is two orders of magnitude larger than that of the crystalline state from the resistance measurement, and the threshold current needed for phase transition of our fabricated PCM cell array is very low （only several μA）. An x-ray total dose radiation test is carried out on the PCM cell array and the results show that this kind of PCM cell has excellent total dose radiation tolerance with total dose up to 2 ×10^6 rad（Si）, which makes it attractive for space-based applications.

OH^- absorption and nonvolatile holographic storage properties in Mg:Ru:Fe:LiNbO_3 crystal as a function of Mg concentration

Mg：Ru：Fe：LiN-bO3 crystals with various concentrations of MgO （in mole） and fixed content of RuO2 and Fe203 （in mass） are grown with the Czochralski method from the congruent melt. Their infrared transmission spectra are mea- sured and discussed to investigate the defect structure. With the increase of Mg2＋ concentration the blue nonvolatile holographic storage capability is enhanced. The nonvolatile holographic storage properties of dual-wavelength recording of Mg（7 mol%）：Ru：Fe：LiNbO3 nonvolatile diffraction efficiency, response time, and nonvolatile sensitivity reach 59.8%, 70 s, and 1.04 cm/J, respectively. Comparing Mg（7 mol%）：Ru：Fe：LiNbO3 with Ru：Fe：LiNbO3 crystal, the response time is shortened apparently. The nonvolatile diffraction efficiency and sensitivity are raised largely. The mechanism in blue photorefractive nonvolatile holographic storage is discussed.

Reducing Power and Energy Consumption of Nonvolatile Microcontrollers with Transparent On-Chip Instruction Cache

Demands for low-energy microcontrollers have been increasing in recent years. Since most microcontrollers achieve user programmability by integrating nonvolatile (NV) memories such as flash memories for storing their programs, the large power consumption required in accessing an NV memory has become a major problem. This problem becomes critical when the power supply voltage of NV microcontrollers is decreased. We can solve this problem by introducing an instruction cache, thus reducing the access frequency of the NV memory. Unlike general-purpose microprocessors, microcontrollers used for real-time applications in embedded systems must accurately calculate program execution time prior to its execution. Therefore, we introduce a “transparent” instruction cache, which does not change the existing NV microcontroller’s cycle-level execution time, for reducing power and energy consumption, but not for improving the processing speed. We have conducted detailed microar chitecture design based on the architecture of a major industrial microcontroller, and we evaluated power and energy consumption for several benchmark programs. Our evaluation shows that the proposed instruction cache can successfully reduce energy consumption in a fairly wide range of practical NV microcontroller configurations.

A 130-nm ferroelectric nonvolatile system-on-chip for internet of things

IEEE J.Solid-State Circuits,2019,doi:10.1109/JSSC.2018.2884349Nonvolatile processor(NVP)is promising for energy-harvesting-powered internet-of-things(IoT)devices,owing to its unique capability to sustain computation progress over power outages.Recently.

Design and Analysis of Low Power Hybrid Memristor-CMOS Based Distinct Binary Logic Nonvolatile SRAM Cell

Memristor is a newly found fourth circuit element for the next generation emerging nonvolatile memory technology. In this paper, design of new type of nonvolatile static random access memory cell is proposed by using a combination of memristor and complemented metal oxide semiconductor. Biolek memristor model and CMOS 180 nm technology are used to form a single cell. By introducing distinct binary logic to avoid safety margin is left for each binary logic output and enables better read/write data integrity. The total power consumption reduces from 0.407 mw (milli-watt) to 0.127 mw which is less than existing memristor based memory cell of the same CMOS technology. Read and write time is also significantly reduced. However, write time is higher than conventional 6T SRAM cell and can be reduced by increasing motion of electron in the memristor. The change of the memristor state is shown by applying piecewise linear input voltage.

Improvement of memory characteristics by employing a charge trapping layer with combining bent and flat energy bands

Designed ZrxSi1-xO2 films with combining bent and flat energy bands are employed as a charge trapping layer for memory capacitors.Compared to a single bent energy band,the bandgap structure with combining bent and flat energy bands exhibits larger memory window,faster program/erase speed,lower charge loss even at 200℃ for 104s,and wider temperature insensitive regions.The tunneling thickness together with electron recaptured efficiency in the trapping layer,and the balance of two competing electron loss mechanisms in the bent and flat energy band regions collectively contribute to the improved memory characteristics.Therefore,the proposed ZrxSi1-xO2 with combining bent and flat energy bands should be a promising candidate for future nonvolatile memory applications,taking into consideration of the trade-off between the operation speed and retention characteristics.

Low voltage program-erasable Pd-Al_2O_3-Si capacitors with Ru nanocrystals for nonvolatile memory application

Pd-Al2O3-Si capacitors with Ru nanocrystals are fabricated and electrically characterized for nonvolatile memory application. While keeping the entire insulator Al2O3 thickness fixed, the memory window has a strong dependence on the tunneling layer thickness under low operating voltages, whereas it has weak dependence under high operating voltages. As for the optimal configuration comprised of 6-nm tunneling layer and 22-nm blocking layer, the resulting memory window increases from 1.5 V to 5.3 V with bias pulse increasing from 10-5 s to 10-2 s under ±7 V. A ten-year memory window as large as 5.2 V is extrapolated at room temperature after ±8 V/1 ms programming/erasing pulses.

Surface-type nonvolatile electric memory elements based on organic-on-organic CuPc-H_2Pc heterojunction

A novel surface-type nonvolatile electric memory elements based on organic semiconductors CuPc and H2Pc are fabricated by vacuum deposition of the CuPc and H2Pc films on preliminary deposited metallic （Ag and Cu） electrodes. The gap between Ag and Cu electrodes is 3040μm. For the current-voltage （I-V） characteristics the memory effect, switching effect, and negative differential resistance regions are observed. The switching mechanism is attributed to the electric-field-induced charge transfer. As a result the device switches from a low to a high-conductivity state and then back to a low conductivity state if the opposite polarity voltage is applied. The ratio of resistance at the high resistance state to that at the low resistance state is equal to 120-150. Under the switching condition, the electric current increases -- 80-100 times. A comparison between the forward and reverse I-V characteristics shows the presence of rectifying behavior.

Preparation of size controllable copper nanocrystals for nonvolatile memory applications

A method of fabricating Cu nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 dielectric film for nonvolatile memory applications by magnetron sputtering is introduced in this paper. The average size and distribution density of Cu nanocrystal grains are controlled by adjusting experimental parameters. The relationship between nanocrystal floating gate micro-structure and its charge storage capability is also discussed theoretically.

Improved performance of Au nanocrystal nonvolatile memory by N2-plasma treatment on HfO2blocking layer

The N2-plasma treatment on a HfO2 blocking layer of Au nanocrystal nonvolatile memory without any post annealing is investigated. The electrical characteristics of the MOS capacitor with structure of Al–Ta N/HfO2/Si O2/p-Si are also characterized. After N2-plasma treatment, the nitrogen atoms are incorporated into HfO2 film and may passivate the oxygen vacancy states. The surface roughness of HfO2 film can also be reduced. Those improvements of HfO2 film lead to a smaller hysteresis and lower leakage current density of the MOS capacitor. The N2-plasma is introduced into Au nanocrystal（NC） nonvolatile memory to treat the HfO2 blocking layer. For the N2-plasma treated device, it shows a better retention characteristic and is twice as large in the memory window than that for the no N2-plasma treated device. It can be concluded that the N2-plasma treatment method can be applied to future nonvolatile memory applications.

Utilization-Aware Data Variable Allocation on NVM- Based SPM in Real-Time Embedded Systems

With the development of the nonvolatile memory(NVM),using NVM in the design of the cache and scratchpad memory(SPM)has been increased.This paper presents a data variable allocation(DVA)algorithm based on the genetic algorithm for NVM-based SPM to prolong the lifetime.The lifetime can be formulated indirectly as the write counts on each SPM address.Since the differences between global variables and stack variables,our optimization model has three constraints.The constraints of the central processing unit(CPU)utilization and size are used for all variables,while no-overlay constraint is only used for stack variables.To satisfy the constraints of the optimization model,we use the greedy strategy to generate the initial population which can determine whether data variables are allocated to SPM and distribute them evenly on SPM addresses.Finally,we use the Mälardalen worst case executive time(WCET)benchmark to evaluate our algorithm.The experimental results show that the DVA algorithm can not only obtain close-to-optimal solutions,but also prolong the lifetime by 9.17% on average compared with SRAM-based SPM.