Engineering Energy-Efficient Switching Devices for AI Hardware

Abstract

Data conversion, storing in volatile memories, transmission, and computation impose high energy consumption, latency, and a memory bottleneck. To achieve energy efficiency, new low-power nano scale devices are required for the integration of sensing and in-memory computation to efficiently enable Artificial Intelligence (AI) on resource-limited systems. Resistive random-access memory (RRAM) devices are currently being investigated for the possible implementation of artificial intelligence hardware through in-memory computing. The electrical performance in these devices depends on the dielectric deposition process, precise selection of deposition parameters, pre-deposition surface treatments, and subsequent thermal budget. The  talk will discuss the RRAM devices with hydrogen plasma-treated high-k dielectric stacks that have shown low power switching and good conductance quantization with programming pulsed operation that qualify them to be used for in-memory computing. Engineering the distribution of defects or oxygen vacancies near the top and bottom electrodes has a significant impact on reducing the switching power and improving the multi-level cell (MLC) characteristics of the device.

Bio

Prof. Durga Misra is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and ComputerEngineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, USA. His current research interestsare in the areas of nanoelectronics devices and circuits, especially in nanometer CMOS gatestacks and switching devices. He is a Fellow of IEEE. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of theIEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS). He is also a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (ECS). He received the Thomas Collinan Award from the Dielectric Science & TechnologyDivision and the Electronic and Photonic Division Award from ECS. He edited and co-editedmore than 50 books and conference proceedings in his field of research. He has published morethan 200 technical articles in peer-reviewed Journals and in International Conferenceproceedings, including more than 100 Invited Talks. He has graduated over 20 PhD students and55 MS students. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from theUniversity of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 1985 and 1988, respectively.