Reliability Impact of Chalcogenide-Structure Relaxation in Phase-Change Memory (PCM) Cells—Part II: Physics-Based Modeling

Author

Lavizzari, Simone ; Ielmini, Daniele ; Sharma, Deepak ; Lacaita, Andrea L.

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Elettron. e Inf., Politec. di Milano, Milan

Volume

56

Issue

5

fYear

2009

fDate

5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1078

Lastpage

1085

Abstract

Phase-change memory (PCM) cells are affected by structural relaxation (SR), which is the atomic-scale rearrangement of the amorphous phase of the chalcogenide material. Since SR affects the stability of electrical parameters of the PCM cell, such as resistance and threshold voltage, physics-based models for SR are necessary to analyze and predict the device reliability. This paper presents a physical model for SR in amorphous chalcogenide materials, linking the defect annihilation dynamics to the conduction behavior of the cell, hence to the electrical characteristics of the PCM cell. The model is able to predict the PCM cell characteristics as a function of annealing time, temperature, and read conditions.

Keywords

phase change memories; semiconductor device reliability; annealing time; atomic-scale rearrangement; chalcogenide-structure relaxation; device reliability; electrical parameters stability; phase-change memory cells; read conditions; structural relaxation; temperature; Amorphous materials; Conducting materials; Electric resistance; Joining processes; Phase change materials; Phase change memory; Predictive models; Stability analysis; Strontium; Threshold voltage; Amorphous semiconductors; chalcogenide materials; nonvolatile memory; phase-change memory (PCM); reliability estimation; reliability modeling;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2009.2016398

Filename

4806047