The flash memory chip called "Changying" uses a new 2D-silicon hybrid design and has just been published in the top journal Nature. It's the first ever working chip to combine super-fast 2D flash memory with this kind of silicon process. Tests show a high production success rate of 94.3%, and its performance beats current flash memory options by a good margin.
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The "Memory Wall" in the Age of AI: Surging Computing Power Hits Memory Bottleneck
● Memory devices are one of the biggest bottlenecks holding back AI development, according to researcher Liu Chunsen. Big AI models need both fast data access and a lot of storage space, but right now, no memory tech can do both well.
● Last April, Zhou Peng and Liu Chunsen’s team showed off a new type of 2D flash memory called "Dawn" in Nature. This tech can store data non-volatilely at an incredibly fast speed—just 400 picoseconds. That’s a million times faster than traditional flash memory, making it the quickest semiconductor charge storage so far.
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The "Changying" Architectural Breakthrough: Enabling 2D Materials to Align with the Silicon-Based Ecosystem
● The team used a step-by-step approach to build everything. They first made the 2D memory circuits and the CMOS circuits separately. Then, they connected them all together on one chip using a special high-density interconnection method. Think of it like building an engine and the car body separately and then putting them together—this avoids problems that could happen if you tried to do everything at once.
● They also used a series of careful transfer and annealing steps to help the 2D materials stick nicely to the uneven surface of the CMOS chips. This allowed the 2D materials to bond with the CMOS surface very tightly, down to the atomic level.
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Smooth Industrialization Path: China's Chip Industry Sees a "Source Technology" Breakthrough
● The Zhou Peng-Liu Chunsen team praised the achievement, saying it's a major breakthrough in China’s chip industry. They called it a “Source Technology” that puts China in a stronger position with next-gen memory tech, emphasizing its big industrial impact.
● A representative from Furong Investment also shared that this tech creates a complete “science-engineering-system” loop, which meets the storage and computing needs of AI. Plus, because it uses existing CMOS production lines, it can speed up development and make it easier to bring to market.
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Over the next three to five years, as the "Changying" chip gets bigger—from a few kilobytes to several megabytes—the way we store data will change completely. In just six months, from launching the "Dawn" device to creating the "Changying" chip, Chinese scientists showed the world what they call "Chinese speed" in chip development.