A

Presentation on

“OVONIC UNIFIED MEMORY”

Submitted by:

G PRAVEEN KUMAR
(10E51D5705)
 FEATURES OF GOOD MEMORY
 ABILITY TO RETAIN STORED CHARGE FOR
LONG PERIODS WITH ZEROAPPLIED OR
REFRESHED POWER.
 HIGH SPEED OF DATA WRITES.
 LOW POWER CONSUMPTION.
 LARGE NO: OF WRITE CYCLES.
Actually none of the present memory
technologies combine these features.
 RECENT ADVANCED MEMORY
TECHNOLOGIES

 Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory

(MRAM)

 Ferroelectric Random Access Memory

(FRAM)

 Ovonic Unified Memory (OUM)

 MRAM
 USES MAGNETIC TUNNEL JUNCTION
AND TRANSISTOR.
 ELECTRIC CURRENT SWITCHES THE
MAGNETIC POLARITY.
 THAT SWITCHING CHANGES IS SENSED
AS A RESISITANCE CHANGE
 FRAM
 USES A CRYSTAL UNIT CELL
 IT IS MADE OF PERVOSKITE - PZT
(i.e. LEAD ZIRCONATE TITANATE)
 DATA IS STORED BY APPLYING A VERY LOW
VOLTAGE.
 ELECTRIC FIELD MOVES THE CENTRAL ATOM
BY CRYSTAL ORIENTATION OF UNIT CELL.
 IT RESULTS IN POLARIZATION OF INTERNAL
DIPOLES.
 OVONIC UNIFIED MEMORY
IT WAS BASED ON CHALCOGENIDE MATERIALS.
THE IMPROVEMENTS IN PHASE CHANGE MEMORY
LEAD TO OUM TECHNOLOGY.
THE PRESENT PHASE CHANGE MEMORY IS CALLED
OUM.
 OVONIC UNIFIED MEMORY
OUM IS A NON VOLATILE MEMORY
TECHNOLOGY WITH:
 HIGH SPEED
 LOW POWER
 REDUCED COST
 HIGH ENDURANCE
 MERGED MEMORY / SIMPLIFIED LOGIC
 EMBEDDED CMOS APPLICATIONS
 MEMORY STRUCTURE

 TOP ELECTRODE
 CHALCOGENIDE LAYERS
 RESISTIVE HEATER
 THERMAL INSULATOR
 PROGRAMMING
 The OUM cell is programmed by application of a current
pulse at a voltage above the switching threshold.
 The programming pulse drives the memory cell into a
high or low resistance state, depending on magnitude
of the pulse voltage.
 Information stored in the cell is read out by measurement
of the cell’s resistance.
 OUM devices are programmed by electrically altering
the structure (amorphous or crystalline) of the small
volume of chalcogenide alloy.
 OPERATION
 Ovonic Unified Memory is a new semiconductor memory
technology, originally invented by Energy Conversion
Devices, Inc. (ECD), and now licensed exclusively to
Ovonyx , Inc.
 OUM uses a reversible structural phase-change
from the amorphous phase to a crystalline phase in a thin-
film chalcogenide alloy material as the data storage
mechanism.
 The small volume of active media in each memory cell acts
as a fast programmable resistor, switching between high
and low resistance with >40X dynamic range.
 BASIC DEVICE OPERATION
 DURING AMORPHIZING RESET
PULSE, THE TEMP
OF MATERIAL EXCEEDS
MELTING POINT
 ELIMINATES THE POLY
CRYSTALLINE ORDER OF
MATERIAL
 CRYSTALIZING SET
PULSE IS OF LOWER
AMPLITUDE
 SUFFICIENT DURATION TO
MAINTAIN THE DEVICE
TEMP IN RAPID
CRYSTALLIZATION RANGE
 READING & WRITING DATA
TO READ DATA
TO WRITE DATA
 CHALCOGENIDE IS HEATED  READING IS DONE BY
ABOVE ITZ MELTING POINT SIMPLY MEASURING THE
TO RESET STATE RESISTANCE CHANGE.
[HIGH RESISTANCE]  HIGH RESISTANCE = SET
 HEATED BELOW ITZ STATE
MELTING POINT FOR 50nS
TO SET STATE  LOW RESISTANCE = RESET
[LOW RESISTANCE] STATE
 V-I CHARACTERISTICS
 AT LOW VOLTAGES THE DEVICE
EITHER LOW RESISTANC ~ 1K OR HIGH
RESISTANCE >100K
 THIS IS THE READ OPERATION REGION
 TO PROGRAM THE DEVICE , A PULSE
OF SUFFICICIENT VOLTAGE IS APPLIED
SWITCHES TO DYNAMIC ON STATE
 FOR RESET IT REQUIRES A VOLTAGE
GREATER THAN V th
 V th IS DEVICE PARAMETER ie, .5 v to .
9v
 THE RECIPROCAL OF V-I CURVE IN
DYNAMIC ON STATE IS THE SERIES
DEVICE RESISITANCE
 R-I CHARACTERISTICS
 AS AMPLITUDE INCREASES,MOVING FROM
LEFT TO RIGHT THE DEVICE CONTINUES TO
REMAIN IN SET STATE
 INCREASE IN AMPLITUDE BEGINS TO RESET
THE DEVICE
 WITH FURTHER INCREASE RESETTING THE
DEVICE TO STANDARD AMORPHOUS STATE
 PROGRAMMED RESISTANCE REDUCED AS
CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE MATERIAL IS
ACHIEVED
 FURTHER INCREASE IN PROGRAMMING
CURRENT FURTHER CRYSTALLIZES THE
MATERIAL ,WHICH DROPS THE RESISTANCE
TO MINIMUM VALUE
 DEVICES CAN BE SAFELY RESET ABOVE
SATURATION POINT
 O U M ADVANTAGES
 OUM uses a reversible structural phase change.
(amorphous phase crystalline phase)
 Small active storage medium.
 Simple manufacturing process.
 Simple planar device structure.
 Low voltage single supply.
 Reduced assembly and test costs.
 Multistates are demonstrated.
 High temperature resistance.
 Easy integration with CMOS.
 OUM APPLICATIONS
 OUM has direct applications in
o computers,
o cell phones,
o graphics-3D rendering,
o GPS,
o video conferencing,
o multi-media,
o Internet networking and interfacing,
o digital TV,
o telecom,
o digital voice recorders,
o DVD,
o networking (ATM).