Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed
the industry’s first 50-nm DDR2 DRAM chip, which will increase production
efficiency from the 60nm level by 55 percent. The new 1-Gb DRAM
incorporates three-dimensional transistor design and multi-layered
dielectric technology, which Samsung says will greatly enhance performance
and data storage capabilities.
“With the 50nm DRAM development, we’re continuing our technology
leadership, paving the way for our customers to reap not only greater cost
efficiencies but also to make superior products,” said Nam Yong Cho, executive
vice president of memory sales & marketing at Samsung Electronics’
Semiconductor business.
According to Samsung, the key to the production efficiencies
in the newly developed 50nm process is the use of a selective epitaxial growth
transistor (SEG Tr). This 3D transistor has a broader electron channel that
optimizes the speed of each chip’s electrons to reduce power consumption and
enable higher performance. Continued miniaturization of the overall memory
circuit and an increasingly limited area of coverage within a wafer cell make
it much harder to secure and sustain sufficient volumes of electrons. Adding to
the 50nm design improvements, the SEG transistor introduces a multi-layered
dielectric layer (ZrO2/Al2O3/ZrO2) to resolve weak electrical features. The new
dielectric layer sustains higher volumes of electron to increase storage
capacity, ensuring higher reliability in storing data.
Samsung’s new 50nm process technology can be applied to a
broad range of DRAM chips including graphics and mobile DRAM. Mass production
is slated for 2008.
Another advancement in DRAM was announced from
Micron less than a month ago. Rather than shrinking the process, Micron
concentrated on ramping up the speeds to develop DDR3 products supporting data rates
of 800 MT/s to 1,600 MT/s. Outside of DRAM, Samsung announced in
September that it is currently researching Phase-change Random Access Memory,
which is expected to replace current NOR flash memory technology.
