Symposium EL02-Phase-Change Materials for Brain-like Computing, Embedded Memory and Photonic Applications

The rapidly growing demand for data storage and processing, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and other data-intensive applications, is posing a serious challenge for current computing devices based on the von Neumann architecture. For every calculation, data sets need to be shuffled sequentially between the processor, and multiple memory and storage units through bandwidth-limited and energy-inefficient interconnects, typically causing 40% power wastage. Phase-change materials (PCMs) based on chalcogenides or antinomies show great promise to break this bottleneck by enabling non-volatile memory devices that can optimize the complex memory hierarchy, and neuro-inspired computing devices that can unify computing with storage in memory cells. The basic working principle is that PCMs can be switched between the amorphous and crystalline phase rapidly and reversibly by either electrical or optical pulses. The large contrast in electrical resistance and optical reflectivity between the two solid-state phases defines the logic state “0” and “1” for memory applications, while the continuous and non-linear change in resistance and reflectivity upon partial amorphization or gradual crystallization can be used to emulate neuronal dynamics for brain-like computing. In addition to traditional Ge-Sb-Te based alloys, metal oxides and two-dimensional materials, such as VO₂and MoTe₂, have also been utilized for phase-change memory applications, where the switching between different logical states is achieved by transitions between different crystalline phases.

Topics will include:

Materials design and characterization
Crystallization kinetics of PCMs
Resistance drift phenomenon and multi-level storage
Brain-like computing devices and modeling
Threshold switching effect and selector devices
Cycling endurance and device degradation mechanism
High-Temperature PCMs and embedded memory
Optical and thermal properties of PCMs
Non-volatile photonics and metamaterials
Atomic imaging and modelling of PCMs

Invited Speakers:

Jaakko Akola (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)
Sabrina Calvi (INFN Roma Tor Vergata, Italy)
Stefano Cecchi (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Italy)
Hai-Yu Michelle Cheng (Macronix International, USA)
Guy Cohen (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA)
Behrad Gholipour (University of Alberta, Canada)
Shogo Hatayama (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan)
Asir Intisar Khan (Stanford University, USA)
Hyun Jung Kim (NASA Langley Research Center, USA & Department of Aerospace Engineering, KAIST, South Korea)
Massimo Longo (Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata, Italy)
Riccardo Mazzarello (Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy)
Antonio Mio (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy)
Timothy Philip (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, USA)
Stefania Privitera (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy)
Andrea Redaelli (ST Microelectronics, Italy)
Martin Salinga (University of Münster, Germany)
Aida Todri Sanial (Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Netherlands)
Ranjan Singh (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
Olivier Thomas (Aix Marseille University, France)
Sharon Weiss (Vanderbilt University, USA)
Nathan Youngblood (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
Wei Zhang (Xi’an Jiaotong University, China)