[Peace&Chips] Storing Like NAND at DRAM Speeds... The Future of Next-Generation Memory

New Memory Combining Advantages of DRAM and NAND
Expectations for P·M·R RAM, but Finished Products Not Yet
Active Research on Next-Generation Memory Applications

Editor's NoteSemiconductors, known as the rice of modern industry. Although it's a term we hear every day, it's often hard to explain. Peace & Chips will make the complex concepts and overall trends of the semiconductor industry easy to digest for you. Just place your spoon on it.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Pyeonghwa] The representative players of memory semiconductors are DRAM and NAND flash. Both products serve the role of storing information, fitting their category name 'memory.'

The difference appears when the power is turned off. DRAM loses the stored information when the power is off, whereas NAND retains the information. This is why DRAM is called volatile memory and NAND non-volatile memory.

Data processing speeds also differ. Although NAND performance is improving, DRAM processes data faster. You can see the two products as playing complementary roles.

Samsung Electronics' 16Gb DDR5 DRAM product at 16nm class, unveiled last month. / [Image courtesy of Samsung Electronics]

Because of this, there have been attempts since the past to introduce new memory that combines the advantages of both products. They sought next-generation memory that retains information even when powered off and also has fast processing speeds.

The next-generation memories researched by the semiconductor industry and academia include ▲Phase-Change Memory (PRAM) ▲Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetic RAM (MRAM) ▲Resistive RAM (RRAM). PRAM is also called PC-RAM, MRAM as STT-MRAM, and RRAM as ReRAM.

PRAM stores information through phase changes of specific materials, MRAM stores information by utilizing magnetic properties, and RRAM stores information by applying voltage to specific materials, which is the difference.

Comparison Table of NAND and DRAM / [Image source=Samsung Electronics Semiconductor Homepage Capture]

The semiconductor industry has actively pursued next-generation memory business since the 2010s. Samsung Electronics acquired the US MRAM developer Grandis in 2011. SK Hynix also started collaborations with Japan's Toshiba and the US IBM in 2011 and 2012 respectively to develop MRAM and PRAM.

Since then, news of next-generation memory business from semiconductor companies has occasionally surfaced, but ultimately, no finished product has replaced existing memory. There is still no industry standard for the related technology.

Professor Eom Jae-cheol of the Semiconductor Electronics Department at Youngjin College said, "Research has been active worldwide, and we also promoted development as a policy task, but there were limitations in improving performance enough to use (next-generation products) as main memory."

SK Hynix introduced the 238-layer 4-dimensional (4D) NAND last year /
[Image provided by SK Hynix]

Recently, applied research based on next-generation memory technology has been active. The Next-Generation Intelligent Semiconductor Project Group, a pan-government organization developing semiconductor technology, is researching synapse devices to introduce AI semiconductors, utilizing next-generation memory technology.

Samsung Electronics' Advanced Institute of Technology also implemented MRAM-based in-memory computing for the first time in the world last year. In-memory computing performs data storage and computation functions within memory, enabling AI semiconductors.

This article is from [Peace & Chips], published weekly by Asia Economy. By clicking subscribe, you can receive articles for free.

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