A Future Way of Storing Information: Resistive Random Access Memory

Electronic information storage has become one of the major needs of modern societies, and it represents a market of more than US$5 billion [1]. Among all of the existing technologies, flash memory is the most widespread because of its simple structure, high integration, and fast speed [2]. The core cell of this device is based on the charge and discharge of a capacitor using a transistor as a tiny switch [3], but, as the devices are scaled down, this configuration presents some physical limitations [4]. Therefore, new ways for information storage are required, and, among all existing nonvolatile memories, one that has raised major expectations in recent years is resistive random access memory (RRAM) [5]. In this article, we present the working principle and functioning of the most promising RRAM devices for future information storage.