Pioneers of Semiconductor Non-Volatile Memory (NVM)
The first four decades
Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) devices are read/write, electronic data-storage elements that continue to hold information after power is removed from the device. They include magnetic disk-drive units and certain semiconductor chips. Semiconductor NVM devices play important roles in every aspect of the digital universe, from storage cells in vast databanks in the cloud to personal portable devices, and comprise one of the largest segments of the $400-billion semiconductor industry today.
As with every significant semiconductor product development, from the transistor to the microprocessor, NVM devices evolved from the work of pioneering researchers who built on the efforts of their predecessors through intuitive insights, lucky breaks, trial and error, and a determination to ignore the doubts of naysayers. This article is a chronological presentation of some of those pioneers and their key technology developments from the first glimmerings of the idea at Fairchild in 1960 to the high-volume manufacture of Flash chips in the last decade of the 20th century.
On behalf of the Semiconductor Special Interest Group (SIG), the late Jeff Katz recorded interviews with a number of significant contributors to advances in the development of commercial semiconductor NVM devices for the…
