Within a few years, almost every electronic device will contain memory based on a new generation of technology. All over the world, scientists and engineers are searching for a technology that can be improved over multiple generations, applied to many types of electronic and memory devices.

According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, memory chips in 2006 had 1.79 gigabits per square centimeter. This new work reaches 100 gigabits per square centimeter, a density that the Roadmap forecasts chips won’t reach until sometime after 2020.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

This invention describes a non-volatile molecular memory, insensitive to magnetic and electric field.

Spin crossover compound have been recognized for their great device potential due to the possibility of thermal and light-induced switching between two different spin states.

Indeed the spin crossover compound can be used as a memory bit-cell whereas the memory storage and information reading are based on the hysteretic variations in the capacity and the conductivity of the dielectric material.

Thus information can be stored in a molecular compound with a process of integration compatible with the techniques of advanced micro-technology.

Compared to the DRAM and SRAM, there is no intrinsic limit for the miniaturization of this memory cell, the ultimate limit being the size of the molecules used (on the order of nanometer).

BENEFITS

An improvement of the storage densities related to the possible nanoscale-range of the modified areas is expected. In addition, beyond this aspect, the method involves a bonus related to the possibility to monitor the conductivity value of the modified regions, by using an appropriate value of the conducting-probe potential to perform these modifications.

Such a control of the resulting surface conductivity might allow a ternary (rather than the usual binary) coding, and yield therefore an additional increase of the potential storage density.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

Molecular memory.