Nanoscale memories for compute applications

Abstract

As the performance gap between the CPU and the HDD has increased over time, NAND Flash based Solid State Drive (SSD) has emerged as an ideal candidate to fill this space. While continued cell scaling will further solidify the position of the NAND Flash in the compute applications, eventually it will hit a scaling wall creating opportunities for other types of memories. The vision for such a future memory technology involves a cross-point memory array that will be stackable in the back end CMOS flow and will be scalable to the 10nm half-pitch and below. Some of these memories, depending upon their improved performance over NAND Flash, may also have their unique position in the overall memory hierarchy of a compute system.