Arizona’s semiconductor story is often told through major fabs, but some of the most forward-looking work is happening inside university labs. At Arizona State University, researchers in the Semiconductor Device Research Laboratory are studying how to build memory devices that act more like the human brain and how to fabricate them in space.
This isn’t new territory for ASU. Almost a decade ago, university researchers began examining how hardware could learn and adapt the way the brain does. In 2017, electrical engineering professor Jae-sun Seo worked on low-power systems designed to recognize patterns more efficiently than conventional chips. That early work is now helping SDRL engineers understand how resistive random-access memory, or RRAM, can imitate basic synaptic behavior.
Today’s research centers on RRAM, a form of non-volatile memory that stores data with far less energy than flash and at a smaller scale. Graduate researcher Sai Prakash Maddineni says the team fabricates and tests devices both in a natural Earth environment and in microgravity using printing-based methods that do not require a cleanroom. The approach could be useful for long missions or remote settings where traditional tools are impractical.
RRAM’s electrical behavior makes it a promising fit for neuromorphic computing. Earlier NSF-funded work at ASU explored how electronic devices might mirror biological processes such as learning and adaptation. Senior researcher Jordan Dunn says the lab’s RRAM devices can be tuned to strengthen or weaken their response, echoing how synapses operate in the brain.
The team is also studying whether printing-based fabrication and low-power memory can help reduce resource use in manufacturing. Graduate researcher Yujian Huang notes that efficiency is crucial both on Earth and in space.
ASU researchers plan to test the devices outside the lab, a step that comes as chipmakers push to cut energy use and reduce system complexity. Whether RRAM plays a role in that search is uncertain, but the early data has drawn notice.
