A bi-stable silicon nanofin nanoelectromechanical switch based on van der Waals force for non-volatile memory applications
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Soon, Bo Woon; Singh, Navab; Tsai, Julius Minglin; Lee, Chengkuo
- Source
- The 8th Annual IEEE International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems (NEMS), 2013 8th IEEE International Conference on. :562-565 Apr, 2013
- Subject
- Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Computing and Processing
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Switches
Force
Contacts
Silicon
Electrostatics
Nonvolatile memory
Hysteresis
Nanoelectromechanical systems
NEMS
relay
switch
non-volatile memory
NVM
- Language
We present a silicon nanofin (Si-NF) which can be actuated bi-directionally by electrostatic force between two contact surfaces. The switch is able to maintain its contact leveraging on van der Waals force that holds the Si-NF to either terminal without on-hold bias, thus showing a bi-stable hysteresis behavior. The measured pull-in voltage V PI and V RESET is 10V and −12V respectively, confirming that the switch can be reset by the opposite electrode. Since the switch toggles between two stable states, therefore it can be an ideal device for non-volatile memory (NVM) application.