Emerging memory technologies - mainstream or hearsay?

Abstract

Ideal characteristics of any universal memory technology should be to meet the performance of a SRAM, density as in DRAM and non-volatility (like Flash). Flash memories have been dominant in the non-volatile race based on relatively standard silicon design processes. Memory dominance on SoC's continues to increase and hence tomorrow's high quality SOC's require high quality memory today. The emerging mainstream memory technology should be (1) a universal memory (2) a process solution (3) suitable for the SoC market. This paper will discuss a few emerging memory technologies that are being researched today (Natarajan, 2003).