Crying over expensive RAM? Kioxia may have cracked the 3D RAM puzzle, paving the way for cheaper, faster memory — but it probably won't reach the market till the next decade

• Kioxia develops high-density 3D DRAM using stackable oxide-semiconductor transistors
• Eight-layer transistor stacks show reliable operation in laboratory demonstrations
• Oxide-semiconductor InGaZnO replaces silicon-nitride for vertical and horizontal transistor formation

Kioxia says it has developed highly stackable oxide-semiconductor channel transistors capable of supporting high-density 3D DRAM.

This development could lead to cheaper and faster memory by lowering manufacturing costs per gigabyte and improving energy efficiency through high on-current and ultra-low off-current transistors.

However, this technology requires precise multi-layer alignment, integration into standard fabrication, and long-term reliability testing, all of which may take decades.

Innovations in transistor design

Presented at the recent IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco, the technology demonstrated the operation of transistors stacked in eight vertical layers.

The vertical layers consist of horizontally-aligned transistors formed by replacing conventional silicon-nitride regions with an oxide-semiconductor material, InGaZnO.

This arrangement allows for increased memory capacity without relying on conventional planar DRAM structures.

The oxide-semiconductor channel transistors combine mature silicon-oxide and silicon-nitride films with the new InGaZnO material.

The 3D memory cell structure introduced by Kioxia scales the vertical pitch, allowing more memory cells to be stacked per unit volume.

The horizontal transistors formed in this process show high on-current exceeding 30 microamperes.

It also shows ultra-low off-current below 1 attoampere, thereby minimizing energy usage during refresh cycles.

By reducing refresh power, the design addresses a major limitation of traditional DRAM, where energy consumption rises with higher memory densities.

Replacing single-crystal silicon with oxide semiconductors reduces both complexity and energy requirements in fabrication.

These improvements lower the cost to manufacture DRAM per gigabyte, although retail prices for end users are not expected to decrease in the near term.

The stacked transistor approach also targets applications that require high memory density with low power consumption, such as AI servers and IoT devices.

The enhanced efficiency could support processing of larger datasets without the same proportional increase in energy demand seen in conventional DRAM systems.

Despite these technical advances, transitioning the technology from laboratory demonstrations to mass production presents significant challenges.

Aligning multiple layers precisely, integrating oxide-semiconductor materials into standard production lines, and ensuring long-term reliability remain hurdles for commercialization.

The company plans to continue research and development to enable practical implementation of 3D DRAM in real-world applications.

Although the technology shows clear technical advantages in energy efficiency, density, and manufacturing feasibility, it probably won’t reach consumer markets until the next decade.

That said, cheaper manufacturing per gigabyte does not guarantee lower retail prices, and adoption at scale will require overcoming both production and supply chain issues.

Via TechPowerUp

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