Nano-Electro-Mechanical Nonvolatile Memory (NEMory) Cell Design and Scaling

The design and scalability of a nano-electro-mechanical memory (NEMory) cell are investigated via analytical modeling and finite element analysis (FEA) simulation. Proportionate scaling of all the cell dimensions provides for improved storage density together with low operating voltages and fast program/erase times. From FEA simulation, a 75-nm-long aluminum cantilever-beam NEMory cell is expected to have sub-1-ns erase and program times for sub-1-V operation. Because there are practical limits to beam and air-gap thickness scaling, it will be difficult to achieve low-voltage operation for very short beams $(L_{\rm beam} ≪ \hbox{50}\ \hbox{nm})$, unless a beam material with a low Young's modulus is used. Fracture strain imposes a fundamental limit for beam-length scaling. Thus, a high fracture-strain beam material is desirable to extend NEMory scalability.