Scientists Observe Self-Healing of a Confined Phase Change Memory DeviceA collaboration between the

Scientists Observe Self-Healing of a Confined Phase Change Memory Device

A collaboration between the lab of Judy Cha, the Carol and Douglas Melamed Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and IBM’s Watson Research Center could help make a potentially revolutionary technology more viable for manufacturing.
Phase-change memory (PCM) devices have in recent years emerged as a game-changing alternative to computer random-access memory. Using heat to transform the states of material from amorphous to crystalline, PCM chips are fast, use much less power and have the potential to scale down to smaller chips – allowing the trajectory for smaller, more powerful computing to continue. However, manufacturing PCM devices on a large scale with consistent quality and long endurance has been a challenge.
“Everybody’s trying to figure that out, and we want to understand the phase change behavior precisely,” said Yujun Xie, a PhD candidate in Cha’s lab and lead author of the study. “That’s one of the biggest challenges for phase-change memory.”