Quantum Statistical Transport Phenomena in Memristive Computing Architectures

Abstract

The advent of reliable nanoscale memristive components is promising for next-generation compute-in-memory paradigms; however, the intrinsic variability in these devices has prevented widespread adoption. Here, we show coherent electron wave functions play a pivotal role in the nanoscale transport properties of these emerging nonvolatile memories. By characterizing both filamentary and nonfilamentary memristive devices as disordered Anderson systems, the switching characteristics and intrinsic variability arise directly from the universality of electron transport in disordered media. Our framework suggests that localization phenomena in nanoscale solid-state memristive systems are directly linked to circuit-level performance. We discuss how quantum conductance fluctuations in the active layer set a lower bound on device variability. This finding implies that there is a fundamental quantum limit on the reliability of memristive devices and that electron coherence will play a decisive role in surpassing or maintaining Moore's law with these systems.