Excellent State Stability of Cu/SiC/Pt Programmable Metallization Cells for Nonvolatile Memory Applications

Author

Lee, Wootae ; Park, Jubong ; Son, Myungwoo ; Lee, Joonmyoung ; Jung, Seungjae ; Kim, Seonghyun ; Park, Sangsu ; Shin, Jungho ; Hwang, Hyunsang

Author_Institution

Sch. of Mater. Sci. & Eng., Gwangju Inst. of Sci. & Technol., Gwangju, South Korea

Volume

32

Issue

5

fYear

2011

fDate

5/1/2011 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

680

Lastpage

682

Abstract

We have investigated silicon carbide (SiC) as a new programmable metallization cell material for nonvolatile memory applications. Our Cu/SiC/Pt devices showed bipolar resistive switching; the conduction mechanisms can be explained by the formation of a Cu filament and Poole-Frenkel emission in the low-resistance and high-resistance states, respectively. In particular, our devices showed excellent state stability, e.g., nondestructive readout at various stress voltages, excellent retention characteristics at 150°C for 10⁴ s, and stable memory operation at high ambient temperature. We attribute this state stability to the SiC´s high chemical stability and the ability to act as a Cu diffusion barrier.

Keywords

copper; integrated circuit metallisation; platinum; random-access storage; silicon compounds; wide band gap semiconductors; Cu-SiC-Pt; Poole-Frenkel emission; bipolar resistive switching; chemical stability; conduction mechanism; copper diffusion barrier; copper filament; nondestructive readout; nonvolatile memory application; programmable metallization cell material; retention characteristics; silicon carbide; state stability; temperature 150 C; Copper; Materials; Silicon carbide; Switches; Temperature; Temperature measurement; Thermal stability; Programmable metallization cell (PMC); resistive switching; silicon carbide (SiC);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2011.2119370

Filename

5750024