Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a ferroelectric NAND flash memory that can withstand radiation levels up to 30 times higher than conventional NAND flash memory, according to a study published in Nano Letters.
The new memory retains reliability under radiation doses up to 1 million rads, equivalent to 100 million X-rays.
How It Works
The memory uses ferroelectricity, storing data as polarization rather than trapped electric charge, making it resilient to radiation effects.
Asif Khan, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, stated:
"If you send traditional flash memory to space, the radiation interacting with flash memory's trapped electric charge can easily corrupt the data. In contrast, ferroelectric NAND flash storage does not store data as trapped electrical charge, but rather stores it as polarization in the material. And polarization is very resilient to radiation effects."
The ferroelectric material is hafnium oxide, a silicon-compatible material discovered 15 years ago.
Key Benchmark
Radiation testing at Pennsylvania State University showed that the ferroelectric flash technology can sustain radiation as high as 1 million rads.
This tolerance exceeds requirements for:
- Low-Earth orbit (5-30 kilorads)
- Geostationary orbit (100-300 kilorads)
- Deep space missions (up to 1 million rads)
Lance Fernandes, ECE Ph.D. student and first author, said:
"For data storage in space, it's not enough for memory to work. It has to remain reliable under extreme radiation."
Why It Matters
The development addresses the critical need for reliable data storage in spacecraft as missions travel farther from Earth and rely more on AI data processing.
Conventional NAND flash memory, which stores data as trapped electrical charge, is vulnerable to data corruption from radiation.
Funding and Support
The work was supported in part by SUPREME, one of seven centers in JUMP 2.0, a Semiconductor Research Corporation program sponsored by DARPA. The research was also performed as part of the Interaction of Ionizing Radiation With Matter University Research Alliance, sponsored by the Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, under grant HDTRA1-20-2-0002.