This technology is a novel type of non-volatile memory that can store more than two values in a single cell, significantly increasing the amount of data that can be stored.
Background: Conventional floating gate non-volatile memory (FGNVM) can store two values (0 or 1) in a single memory cell. The 0 and 1 represent the presence or absence of charge carriers (electrons) in the floating gate. In FGNVM, initially, there is no charge in the floating gate, and the device turns on at the normal threshold voltage. To store charge in the floating gate, a high magnitude gate pulse is applied to the device. The short-duration gate pulse helps electrons to tunnel through the gate insulator and be stored inside the floating gate. Once the floating gate is occupied with electronics charges, the threshold voltage of the device is changed, and the device turns on at a higher value of the applied gate-source (VGS) voltage.
Technology Overview: This technology is a new type of nonvolatile memory (NVM) that can store more than two states. This technology is a multiple quantum well floating gate non-volatile memory (MQWFGNVM), in which the gate is composed of quantum wells (QW) and barrier combinations. This replaces the floating gate of the conventional NVM. In this structure, the QWs store the charges by the application of the gate pulse. When no QW is filled, the threshold voltage is minimum; when all are filled, the threshold voltage is highest. Partial occupancy of QWs varies the threshold voltage between its lowest and highest values. This technology can store more than two values in a single cell, which increases the data density.
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Advantages: Stores more than two values in a single cell, significantly increasing the amount of data that can be stored.
Applications: The primary application for this technology is the design and manufacture of non-volatile memory. This is most commonly used in secondary memory for program and data storage, and long-term storage applications.
Know-how based, patents available
Stage of Development: TRL 2 - Experimental proof of concept
Licensing Status: This technology is available for licensing.