The impact of hole-induced electromigration on the cycling endurance of phase change memory

Author

Lee, M.H. ; Cheek, R. ; Chen, C.F. ; Zhu, Y. ; Bruley, J. ; Baumann, F.H. ; Shih, Y.H. ; Lai, E.K. ; Breitwisch, M. ; Schrott, A. ; Raoux, S. ; Joseph, E.A. ; Cheng, H.Y. ; Wu, J.Y. ; Lung, H.L. ; Lam, C.

Author_Institution

Macronix Int. Co., Ltd., Hsinchu, Taiwan

fYear

2010

fDate

6-8 Dec. 2010

Abstract

The high current density induced failure in Ge₂Sb₂Te₅(GST)-based phase change memory (PCM) is investigated. A strong dependence of cycling endurance on the polarity of the operation current is observed and reported for the first time. The cycling endurance is reduced by 4 orders of magnitude when the current polarity is reversed. Careful TEM analysis of failed cells revealed a thin void in GST over the bottom electrode, but only in the reverse polarity samples. This phenomenon can be explained by hole-induced electromigration at the electrode/GST interface. The impact of electromigration on scaled phase change memory is discussed.

Keywords

antimony compounds; electromigration; germanium compounds; phase change memories; Ge₂Sb₂Te₅; PCM; careful TEM analysis; electrode-GST interface; hole-induced electromigration; phase change memory cycling endurance;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), 2010 IEEE International

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

ISSN

0163-1918

Print_ISBN

978-1-4424-7418-5

Electronic_ISBN

0163-1918

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEDM.2010.5703440

Filename

5703440