Computer memory improves performance and reduces energy demands

The devices, which process data in a similar way to synapses, are based on hafnium oxide and self-assembled barriers that can be raised or lowered to allow electrons to pass.

According to the team, this method of changing the electrical resistance in computer memory devices, and allowing information processing and memory to exist in the same place, could lead to the development of computer memory devices with far greater density, higher performance and lower energy consumption. The results are reported in Science Advances.

Within the next few years, artificial intelligence, internet usage, algorithms and other data-driven technologies are expected to consume over 30 per cent of global electricity.  

“To a large extent, this explosion in energy demands is due to shortcomings of current computer memory technologies,” said first author Dr Markus Hellenbrand, from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. “In conventional computing, there’s memory on one side and processing on the other, and data is shuffled back between the two, which takes both energy and time.”