Old Materials Can Actually Produce Better Electronics

Problems like pushing together electronic components closer and closer into incredibly small spaces, to create smaller chips can be solved through a new technology developed at ASU's Center for Applied Nanoionics (CANi), by researches that use old materials, mixed up in different configurations.

The revolutionary method, created in collaboration with Research Center J�lich in Germany, has been presented in the October issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, in an article called "Bipolar and Unipolar Resistive Switching in Cu- doped SiO2".

Conventional memories made today use a silicon base material to create intricate electronic circuitry, which comes with great disadvantages while trying to shrink beyond a certain point, as nanotechnology does not work the same way as traditional electronics does, great heat and power dissipation resulting in the process, which makes them highly inefficient. They also have storing capacity problems, since they use the binary code to preserve information, meaning that a single storage cell can only save a bit of information at a time.

The researchers have approached the problem from another point of view. Instead of using conventional techniques and trying to minimize the electronic circuits, they have thought of a way of to store more information on a normal-sized chip. Current electronic chips use electrical charges to store information, but instead of moving an electron, nanoionics move the ions themselves. By doping small amounts of copper in the silicon based chip, a resistance based memory module can be created, with better storing capacity.

The doping of the silicon chips with conductive components like boron, arsenic or phosphorus, is a common practice in electronics production, being the base of the creation of the electronic components such as diodes and transistors, the building blocks of the electronic chips, but the use of copper for silicon dioxide doping had been something never heard of, and highly forbidden.

The new high-performance resistance-charge memory, can in fact store multiple bits of information in a single place, by using a procedure called resistance setting, and can retain information even after the power has been switched off, a great advantage over the current memory module which need constant power so that the stored information is not lost.

These new technologies can be used to create ever smaller electronic devices, from computers to iPods, greatly improving their power consumption and performance. Similar production processes have been used by companies like Sony and IBM, after purchasing Licences from CANi, but now they require a new process development.