{"id":100897,"date":"2020-01-15T13:29:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T21:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/ferroelectric-semiconductors-could-mix-memory-and-logic"},"modified":"2020-01-15T13:29:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T21:29:14","slug":"ferroelectric-semiconductors-could-mix-memory-and-logic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/ferroelectric-semiconductors-could-mix-memory-and-logic","title":{"rendered":"Ferroelectric Semiconductors Could Mix Memory and Logic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/ferroelectric-semiconductors-could-mix-memory-and-logic.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>FSJs (Ferroelectric Semiconductor Junction) in neuromorphic chips.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Engineers at Purdue University and at Georgia Tech have constructed the first devices from a new kind of two-dimensional material that combines memory-retaining properties and semiconductor properties. The engineers used a newly discovered ferroelectric semiconductor, alpha indium selenide, in two applications: as the basis of a type of transistor that stores memory as the amount of amplification it produces; and in a two-terminal device that could act as a component in future brain-inspired computers. The latter device was unveiled last month at the IEEE <a href=\"https:\/\/ieee-iedm.org\/\">International Electron Devices Meeting<\/a> in San Francisco.<\/p>\n<p>Ferroelectric materials become polarized in an electric field and retain that polarization even after the field has been removed. <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tag\/ferroelectric+RAM\">Ferroelectric RAM<\/a> cells in commercial memory chips use the former ability to store data in a capacitor-like structure. Recently, researchers have been <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/computing\/hardware\/chipmakers-test-ferroelectrics-as-a-route-to-ultralowpower-chips\">trying to coax more tricks from these ferroelectric materials<\/a> by bringing them into the transistor structure itself or by building other types of devices from them.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, they\u2019ve been embedding ferroelectric materials into a transistor\u2019s gate dielectric, the thin layer that separates the electrode responsible for turning the transistor on and off from the channel through which current flows. Researchers have also been seeking a ferroelectric equivalent of the <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tag\/memristor\">memristors<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tag\/RRAM\">resistive RAM<\/a>, two-terminal devices that store data as resistance. Such devices, called ferroelectric tunnel junctions, are particularly attractive because they could be made into a very dense memory configuration called a cross-bar array. Many researchers working on neuromorphic- and low-power AI chips use <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/tech-talk\/semiconductors\/processors\/first-programmable-memristor-computer\">memristors to act as the neural synapses<\/a> in their networks. But so far, ferroelectric tunnel junction memories have been a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FSJs (Ferroelectric Semiconductor Junction) in neuromorphic chips. Engineers at Purdue University and at Georgia Tech have constructed the first devices from a new kind of two-dimensional material that combines memory-retaining properties and semiconductor properties. The engineers used a newly discovered ferroelectric semiconductor, alpha indium selenide, in two applications: as the basis of a type of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}