FULLY MICROELECTROMECHANICAL NON-VOLATILE MEMORY CELL

This paper reports the first non-volatile memory cell composed entirely of MEM relays that does not need CMOS circuitry for reading or writing. The cell uses a 7-terminal non-volatile relay for information storage and two 3-terminal relays for read and write access. This three-relay cell has been fabricated and characterised to demonstrate read and write operations. The cell architecture has been designed such that multiple cells can be tiled in combination with a relay-based multiplexer to make a digital all MEM reprogrammable non-volatile memory. Such a memory will have near zero standby power and ability to operate in harsh environments beyond the capabilities of conventional memory technologies.