Technical seminar on

PLASTIC
MEMORY

- MOHITH NAYAK M

REFERENCE
ARTICLE
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research
Volume 9, Issue 4, April-2018 1
ISSN 2229-5518
INTRODUCTION

• Plastic memory is one type of organic semiconductor device

• memory is specially based on one of the most flexible materials.
A new memory Technology that could store more data and cost
less than traditional silicon based chips for mobile systems such
as handheld computers, cell phones and MP3 players.

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• A conducting plastic is used to create a memory that has capacity to store megabit of data
in millimeter square device which makes up to 10 times more denser than current
magnetic memory.

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ORIGIN & CONSTRUCTION OF
PLASTIC MEMORY

• Invented by researchers at Princeton University experienced with Hewlett-Packard.

• Memory disk is technically a hybrid that contains a plastic film, a flexible foil substrate and some silicon.
The polymer material called PEDOT- a perfect conducting plastic used as coating on photographic film
and as electrical consult on video displays.

• It was Princeton postdoctoral Steven Moller, now with Hewlett Packard, who found that PEDOT conducts
electricity at short voltages but permanently, loses its conductivity when exposed to higher electrical currents,
building it act like a circuit breaker.

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• The device sandwiches a blob of polymers called PEDOT and a silicon diode
between two perpendicular wires.

• The passing of high current through PEDOT makes it possible to store 1 or 0

digital information by attaining insulator or conductor polymer states

PEDOT – polyethylene
dioxythiophene 5
WORKING
• To store memory, wires and diodes surrounding the PEDOT blob are used to run HIGH or LOW current. This
makes it either as a conductor or insulator.

• The plastic memory formed is type of non volatile or READ only or permanent type of memory.

• WRITE OPERATION – introduction of HIGH voltages blows out PEDOT fuses. The fuses blown represent
ZEROS and unblown fuses will represent ONES.

• READ OPERATION – the read operation is done by introducing a current in wire and its measurement. The
current is introduced in top wire and measured in bottom wire. No current wire indicates a ZERO bit and a
current above threshold gives a ONE bit. Grid system of wires are being constructed to read multiple bits at
same time.

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• Coatues chips store data based on the polymers electrical resistance. Coatue fabricates each memory
cell as a polymer sandwiched between two electrodes.

• To activate this cell structure, a voltage is applied between the top and bottom electrodes, modifying the
organic material. Different voltage polarities are used to write and read the cells. Application of an
electric field to a cell lowers the polymer’s resistance, thus increasing its ability to conduct current; the
polymer maintains its state until a field of opposite polarity is applied to raise its resistance back to its
original level. The different conductivity States represent bits of information.

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ADVANTAGES

• Plastic memory is fast. Lab built devices with a 1GB storage capacity have yielded read/write cycle
times that are 10 times faster than Compact Flash, which are typically 2-10MB/s read, 1-4MB/s
write.

• Memory is Non volatile

• Fast read and write speeds

• It requires far fewer transistors, typically only 0.5M (million) for 1GB of storage compared to
silicon’s 1.5-6.5B (billion).

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• It can be stacked vertically in a product, yielding 3D space usage; silicon chips can
only be set beside each other.

• Very low cost/bit, high capacity per dollar

• Low power consumption

• Easy to manufacture: use ink-jet printers to spray liquid-polymer circuits onto a

surface

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FEATURES

• Data stored by changing the polarization of the polymer between metal lines.

• Zero transistors per bit of storage.

• Memory is Nonvolatile.

• Microsecond initial reads. Write speed faster than NAND and NOR Flash.

• Simple and easy to integrate with other CMOS device

• No cell standby power or refresh required

• Operational temperature between -40°C -110°C

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APPLICATIONS

RFID
A specific point application for low-cost organic devices is the radio frequency identification
tag. These passive systems could be used on commercial products to assist in tracking,
inventory control, and theft prevention

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 ELECTRONIC MAP

• The flexible nature of the memory is also a valuable attribute that cannot be gained by its silicon
counterparts.

• By combining with electro chromic displays, these memories could be used to make
electronic maps on paper or plastic substrates.

• Unlike GPS systems with expensive handheld devices, these reel-to-reel maps could be folded
put into a back pocket, and could be created at such low cost via the reel-to-reel fabrication that
they could be entirely disposable.

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 DEFENCE APPLICATION
• Think about soldiers in the field who have to carry heavy battery systems, or even civilian
road warriors commuting to meetings.

• If we had a lighter weight system which operates itself at a lower energy price, and if we could
make it on a flexible polymer display, soldiers and other users could just roll it up and carry it.

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 MEDICAL & OTHER APPLICATIONS

• It can be used in tiny sensors which can work 24 hrs to track BP, heart rate, sugar level.

• Particular applications could include active wear with built-in mp3 players. It can also be used in
Digital camera for archiving images

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 LIMITATIONS
• Turning polymer memory into a commercial product is not an easy process.

• Memory technologies compete not only on storage capacity but on speed, energy consumption,
and reliability. The difficulty is in meeting all the requirements of current silicon memory chips.

• Until the new memory Space is able to compete with the high performance of silicon, their notes,
they are likely to be limited to niche applications.

• The polymer memory made at Bell Labs is still relatively slow by silicon standards, and
anticipated capacity is only on the order of a kilobit identification tags meant to be thrown away
after a few uses.

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 CONCLUSION

• Plastic memory is much lower and faster than the existing silicon circuit

• Plastic memory is a combination of materials that could lower the cost and power
the density of electronic memory.

• It is an all-organic memory system with manifold advantages: in speed, production,

energy consumption, storage ability and cost.

• The memory cannot be rewritten, but can be read very fast and with low power
consumption. So this would be perfect only for permanent storage.

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• Plastic memory uses spin of the electron rather than the charge of electron & RFID where
conductivity need is more. So, alternative polymer is to be used for fabrication.

• Plastic memory will be very useful for future for storing data .

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 REFERENCES
• International Symposium on Flexible Electronics (ISFE) journal, Spain

• Mark H. Kryder and Chang Soo Kim IEEE paper ―After Hard Drives— what comes next?

• Shanker Das Sharma ―Spintronics

• Paul Heremans ―Polymer/Organic memories

• G. Hadziioannou, P. van Hutten ―Semiconducting Polymers

• New flexible magnetic plastic memory device by Amity Malware July 20, 2016.

• A Survey of Software Techniques for Using Non-Volatile Memories for Storage and Main
Memory Systems", IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 2015

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Any qsns?
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