Advanced Semiconductor Memories: Architectures, Designs, and Applications

A valuable reference for the most vital microelectronic components in the marketplace

DRAMs are the technology drivers of high volume semiconductor fabrication processes for new generation products that, in addition to computer markets, are finding increased usage in automotive, aviation, military and space, telecommunications, and wireless industries. A new generation of high-density and high-performance memory architectures evolving for mass storage devices, including embedded memories and nonvolatile flash memories, are serving a diverse range of applications.

Comprehensive and up to date, Advanced Semiconductor Memories: Architectures, Designs, and Applications offers professionals in the semiconductor and related industries an in-depth review of advanced semiconductor memories technology developments. It provides details on:

• Static Random Access Memory technologies including advanced architectures, low voltage SRAMs, fast SRAMs, SOI SRAMs, and specialty SRAMs (multiport, FIFOs, CAMs)
• High Performance Dynamic Random Access Memory-DDRs, synchronous DRAM/SGRAM features and architectures, EDRAM, CDRAM, Gigabit DRAM scaling issues and architectures, multilevel storage DRAMs, and SOI DRAMs
• Applications-specific DRAM architectures and designs - VRAMs, DDR SGRAMs, RDRAMs, SLDRAMs, 3-D RAM
• Advanced Nonvolatile Memory designs and technologies, including floating gate cell theory, EEPROM/flash memory cell design, and multilevel flash
• FRAMs and reliability issues
• Embedded memory designs and applications, including cache, merged processor, DRAM architectures, memory cards, and multimedia applications
• Future memory directions with megabytes to terabytes storage capacities using RTDs, single electron memories, etc.

A continuation of the topics introduced in Semiconductor Memories: Technology, Testing, and Reliability, the author's earlier work, Advanced Semiconductor Memories: Architectures, Designs, and Applications offers a much-needed reference to the major developments and future directions of advanced semiconductor memory technology.

ASHOK K. SHARMA is the author of Semiconductor Memories: Technology, Testing, and Reliability (Wiley-IEEE Press, 1997). He is currently working as a reliability engineering manager at NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.