New 'FeTRAM' is promising computer memory technology

Researchers are developing a new type of computer memory that could be faster than the existing commercial memory and use far less power than flash memory devices.

This diagram shows the layout for a new type of computer memory that could be faster than the existing commercial memory and use far less power than flash memory devices. The technology, called FeTRAM, combines silicon nanowires with a "ferroelectric" polymer, a material that switches polarity when electric fields are applied, making possible a new type of ferroelectric transistor. (Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University)

The technology combines silicon nanowires with a "ferroelectric" polymer, a material that switches polarity when electric fields are applied, making possible a new type of ferroelectric transistor.

"It's in a very nascent stage," said doctoral student Saptarshi Das, who is working with Joerg Appenzeller, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and scientific director of nanoelectronics at Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center.

The ferroelectric transistor's changing polarity is read as 0 or 1, an operation needed for digital circuits to store information in binary code consisting of sequences of ones and zeroes.

The new technology is called FeTRAM, for ferroelectric transistor random access memory.

"We've developed the theory and done the experiment and also showed how it works in a circuit," he said.