Kawasaki (Japan) - Today, Fujitsu Laboratories announced a breakthrough in resistive RAM, or ReRAM. ReRAM is a non-volatile memory with low power consumption. Fujitsu has worked through some technology barriers to create a ReRAM solution which is less impacted by design limitations, while decreasing erase cycle power to 100 microamps or less at 5 nanoseconds.

ReRAM is form of memory dependent upon a material which, when a voltage is applied, changes resistance. According to Fujitsu, ReRAM can be created with very small feature sizes, allowing to scale to future process generations. It is also employs a low-cost manufacturing solution, making it a potentially adoptable technology by several manufacturers.

Fujitsu’s labs discovered that by adding titanium to nickel oxide, and by limiting the current flow from the transistor design, erase memory power requirements of 100 microamps or less are possible in 5 nanoseconds. In additions, fluctuations which naturally appear over time, those which alter the resistance values of individual cells and have a negative impact on uniformity and operation, have been reduced to just 10% of levels seen in "conventional ReRAMs". These additions to the technology remove previous barriers and hurdles to possible wide adoption, making it an alternative real-world replacement solution for flash memory.

Fujitsu presented details of this technology at the International Electron Devices Meeting, held this week from Dec 10-12 in Washington, DC. Fujitsu has been researching ReRAM solutions for several years and spends a portion of its annual R&D budget on this research. Previous ReRAM advances by Fujitsu did not include the nickel oxide layer.