White Paper: “MST® Benefits for DRAM Sense Amplifiers”

Published: September 27, 2023

White Paper: “MST® Benefits for DRAM Sense Amplifiers”

By Jeff Lewis, SVP Business Devt. and Marketing

Atomera’s previous white papers have focused on advanced logic, especially gate-all-around (GAA) and nanosheets, and on BCD power devices. Today’s white paper, “MST Benefits for DRAM Sense Amplifiers” is our first paper to describe how MST can also improve memory devices. As many people consider the sense amplifier the “heart” of a DRAM chip, any improvement here can reap significant benefits.

The white paper describes recent learnings about Atomera’s MST® technology and how it can improve the mismatch inherent in DRAM sense amplifiers. This is becoming a critical issue for the latest DRAMs because bitcell capacitors are hitting their scaling limits and the total stored charge is now declining. Reducing mismatch enables numerous cost- and power-reduction benefits that are becoming critical with the huge use of DRAM in AI-focused datacenters.

The paper first describes how DRAM sense amplifiers work; goes into detail on what causes sense amp mismatch, especially random dopant fluctuation (RDF); how MST enables device designers to create the near-ideal dopant profile to minimize RDF; and concludes with a description of the DRAM product benefits of reduced mismatch.

The white paper is available for download at the link here.