Information technology company IBM has built a component for high-speed computer memory that is about ten times smaller than those currently available.

Called a static random access memory (SRAM), this form of memory is needed in greater and greater quantities on computer processor chips to enable the higher system performance required for demanding applications like banking and digital media. Yet, the space available for SRAM on these chips is limited by cost and manufacturing limitations. IBM has shown that the SRAM memory can be made significantly smaller and still operate properly, thereby allowing more to be included on each chip.

Traditionally, SRAM is made more dense by shrinking its basic building block, often referred to as a cell. The IBM SRAM cell is less than half the size of the smallest experimental cell reported to date, and ten times smaller than those available today. To put this in perspective, about 50,000 of the IBM cells could fit on the circular end of a single human hair.

IBM researchers optimised the SRAM cell design and circuit layout to improve stability and developed several fabrication processes in order to make the new SRAM cell possible.

The SRAM cell size achieved by IBM could enable on-chip memories with ten times higher capacity than the current technologies.


Source : DMEurope