Using an Insulator-Metal Transition to Overcome the Fundamental Limits of Non-Volatile Memory Based on Ferroelectric Field Effect Transistors

利用绝缘体-金属转变克服基于铁电场效应晶体管的非易失性存储器的基本限制

• 批准号: 1914730
• 负责人: Nikhil Shukla
• 金额: $ 33.61万
• 依托单位: University of Virginia Main Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1914730&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Using; Insulator; Metal; Transition; Overcome

Nontechnical:The era of Big Data is creating enormous challenges to computing systems and networks. As the computing infrastructure evolves to meet these challenges, memory technology plays an increasingly important role. Over one hundred Zeta Bytes of data is expected to be generated annually by the year 2025. Future generations of computers will therefore need high performance memory that is fast, energy efficient, reliable, and compact. While existing technologies have some of the desired properties, they crucially lack others. For example, ferroelectric field effect transistors (FETs) based on hafnium oxide, a recently discovered material, exhibit very promising properties. They are persistent, retaining information even when turned off, have nanosecond switching speeds, and a small footprint. However, practical realization of this technology is impeded by fundamental issues which compromise reliability and constrain the operation of devices at low voltages. The proposed research aims at addressing this challenge by integrating a new functional material into ferroelectric FETs. Vanadium dioxide exhibits an insulator-to-metal phase transition, allowing it to be switched back and forth between an insulating and conductive states. This property will used to overcome the fundamental barriers associated with existing materials and enable a memory technology that significantly exceeds the performance of the current state-of-the-art. The project provides a natural platform for participating students to be involved in cross-disciplinary research at the intersection of electrical engineering and materials science. Outreach efforts will expose undergraduates and high school students to modern electronics, and broaden their experience and understanding of the opportunities in the area.Technical:This research project aims to overcome the fundamental design trade off involved in writing to, and reading from doped hafnium oxide ferroelectric field effect transistor-based non-volatile memory by replacing the conventional silicon channel of the transistor with an insulator-metal phase transition oxide, VO2. The ferroelectric state dependent abrupt resistance switching across the phase transition in VO2 that will be engineered in this device, will help de-convolute the read and write constraints, and enable the memory cell to be written at low voltages without adversely affecting the read margin, as well as also improve the reliability. A fundamental aspect of this research will focus on stabilizing the ferroelectric phase of doped hafnium oxide on the VO2 under a constrained thermal budget. Furthermore, through a materials-device co-design approach, the project will seek to experimentally demonstrate a ferroelectric transistor-based memory that can operate at a low write voltage and energy, provide large read distinguishability, and exhibit large endurance and reliability. Physics based models and simulations that capture the operation of the device as well as account for its compatibility with array level operation will be developed to support and guide the experimental effort. The results of the proposed research stand to have immense implications towards realizing a universal memory to support and accelerate the data revolution.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

非技术性：大数据时代正在给计算系统和网络带来巨大挑战。随着计算基础设施的发展以应对这些挑战，存储器技术发挥着越来越重要的作用。预计到2025年，每年将产生超过100个Zeta的数据。因此，未来几代计算机将需要快速、节能、可靠和紧凑的高性能存储器。虽然现有技术具有一些理想的特性，但它们严重缺乏其他特性。例如，基于氧化铪（最近发现的材料）的铁电场效应晶体管（FET）表现出非常有前途的特性。它们具有持久性，即使关闭也能保留信息，具有纳秒级的切换速度和较小的占地面积。然而，这种技术的实际实现受到损害可靠性和限制设备在低电压下操作的基本问题的阻碍。拟议的研究旨在通过将新的功能材料集成到铁电FET中来应对这一挑战。二氧化钒表现出绝缘体到金属的相变，使其能够在绝缘和导电状态之间来回切换。该特性将用于克服与现有材料相关的基本障碍，并使存储器技术的性能大大超过当前最先进的技术。该项目为参与学生提供了一个自然的平台，使他们能够参与电气工程和材料科学交叉领域的跨学科研究。拓展工作将使本科生和高中生接触到现代电子学，并拓宽他们的经验和对该领域机会的理解。技术：本研究项目旨在克服基本的设计权衡涉及写入，并阅读从掺杂氧化铪铁电场效应晶体管为基础的非易失性存储器，取代传统的硅沟道的晶体管与绝缘体-金属相变氧化物，VO 2。将在该器件中设计的跨VO 2中的相变的铁电状态相关的突然电阻切换将帮助解卷积读取和写入约束，并且使得能够在低电压下写入存储器单元而不会不利地影响读取裕度，以及还提高可靠性。这项研究的一个基本方面将集中在稳定的铁电相的掺杂氧化铪的VO 2在一个受约束的热预算。此外，通过材料-器件协同设计方法，该项目将寻求实验证明基于铁电晶体的存储器可以在低写入电压和能量下工作，提供大的读取可重复性，并表现出大的耐久性和可靠性。将开发基于物理的模型和模拟，捕捉设备的操作，以及考虑其与阵列级操作的兼容性，以支持和指导实验工作。这项研究的结果将对实现通用存储器以支持和加速数据革命产生巨大影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

Ferroelectric-based Accelerators for Computationally Hard Problems

用于解决计算难题的铁电加速器

• DOI: 10.1145/3453688.3461745
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: GLSVLSI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 on Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI
• 作者: Bashar, Mohammad Khairul;Vaidya, Jaykumar;Surya Kanthi, R. S.;Lee, Chonghan;Shi, Feng;Narayanan, Vijaykrishnan;Shukla, Nikhil
• 通讯作者: Shukla, Nikhil

Ultra-Compact, Scalable, Energy-Efficient $VO_{2}$ Insulator-Metal-Transition Oxide Based Spiking Neurons for Liquid State Machines

用于液体状态机的超紧凑、可扩展、节能的 $VO_{2}$ 基于绝缘体金属过渡氧化物的尖峰神经元

• DOI: 10.1109/vlsi-soc46417.2020.9344078
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 2020 IFIP/IEEE 28th International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI-SOC
• 作者: Ganguly, Samiran;Shukla, Nikhil;Ghosh, Avik W.
• 通讯作者: Ghosh, Avik W.