Memristors with rich interior dynamics of ion migration are promising for mimicking various biological synaptic functions in neuromorphic hardware systems. A graphene-based memristor shows an extremely low energy consumption of less than a femtojoule per spike, by taking advantage of weak surface van der Waals interaction of graphene. The device also shows an intriguing programmable metaplasticity property in which the synaptic plasticity depends on the history of the stimuli and yet allows rapid reconfiguration via an immediate stimulus. This graphene-based memristor could be a promising building block toward designing highly versatile and extremely energy efficient neuromorphic computing systems.
Charged device model (CDM) electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection remains a huge challenge for integrated circuit (IC) reliability designs. The "internal-oriented" CDM model and the "external-oriented" human body model (HBM) describe fundamentally different ESD phenomena. Through the comprehensive analysis, this article concludes that the classic pad-based ESD protection methods, commonly used for "from-external-to-internal" HBM ESD protection, are theoretically not working for "from-internal-to-external" CDM ESD protection. It states that the actual internal distribution of static charges within a chip is vitally critical to CDM ESD protection. The discovery explains the potential root cause of the randomness and uncertainty of pad-based CDM ESD protection designs commonly observed today, hence calls for new CDM ESD protection solutions.
Traditional in-Silicon PN-junction-based on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection structures have inherent ESD-induced design overhead problems, including parasitic capacitance, leakage and Si area consumption. A potential solution to the ESD design overhead challenge is to use a non-conventional above-Si graphene-based nano-electrical mechanical system (gNEMS) transient switch structure to protect integrated circuits (ICs) against ESD failures. This paper reports investigation of materials and device structural impacts on gNEMS ESD protection structures. Transmission-line pulse (TLP) testing confirms that single-crystalline graphene gNEMS switch achieves a record high ESD currenthandling capability of J t2 ∼1.03×10 9 A/cm 2 , at least four times higher than J t2 ∼0.24×10 9 A/cm 2 for its poly-crystalline graphene counterpart. Transient 3D finite element method (FEM) simulation reveals that both device dimensions and shapes of the suspended graphene membranes can substantially affect gNEMS ESD discharging characteristics. The discovery offers guidelines for design optimization of gNEMS ESD switch structures.
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