US Achieves Billion-Fold Power-Saving Semiconductor Tech That Could Challenge China

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania have made a significant breakthrough by reducing the energy consumption of phase-change memory (PCM) technology by a billion times. According to a recent press release, this invention may result in a significant advancement in data storage. PCM, a prospective substitute for conventional memory, stores data by alternating between phases of the material. However, a major obstacle to its broad use has been the energy needed to accomplish this changeover.

Traditionally, PCM operates by changing materials like indium selenide (In?Se?) between amorphous (disordered) and crystalline (ordered) phases, which mimic the binary on/off states used in digital storage. The conventional “melt-quench” process, which requires high energy to heat and cool the material rapidly, has limited PCM’s scalability.

The collaborative Indo-US research team discovered that applying an electric current could induce the phase change in indium selenide with minimal energy. Indium selenide possesses unique ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties, meaning it can polarize naturally and generate an electric current under mechanical stress, making it a suitable candidate for energy-efficient PCM.

In their experiments, electric currents passed through indium selenide caused portions of the material to transform to the amorphous phase, mimicking phenomena like avalanches and earthquakes. This transformation is triggered by tiny deformations in the material’s layered structure, which generate sound waves that spread and amplify the amorphization process.

“This opens a new field of structural transformations in materials when these properties converge,” said Ritesh Agarwal from UPenn, who led the research. The implications for low-power memory devices are vast, potentially setting the stage for a new era in data storage with significantly reduced energy demands an advance that could help the U.S. regain a competitive edge in semiconductor technology against China.