Nonvolatile Memory Design

Preface

Among the numerous exciting inventions that dramatically changed our everyday life in the 20th century, semiconductor technology is one of the most influential achievements. In 1970, the first two important embodiments of semiconductor memory—1-kilobyte (KB) dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and 256-KB static random access memory (SRAM)—were invented by Intel/IBM and Fairchild, respectively. Because both DRAM and STRAM require power to maintain the stored information, they are categorized as volatile memory.

Another category of semiconductor memory is called nonvolatile memory, which can keep information stored even when power is disabled. One example of nonvolatile memory is flash memory, which is based on electrically erasable programmable ...