A Fundamental Analysis of Nano-Crossbars with Non-Linear Switching Materials and its Impact on TiO2 as a Resistive Layer

While materials with a linear IV-characteristic yield in a practically unusable voltage swing when used in crossbar arrays, materials with a nonlinear IV-curve were expected to yield better results. With a fundamental analytical approach, we can show that the gain is theoretically limited to the square root of the number of word lines used in the crossbar. Furthermore the degree of nonlinearity must not exceed a certain value, otherwise the voltage swing decreases. TiO₂ with its nonlinear IV-characteristic outperforms any possible material with a linear IV-characteristic but the voltage swing for large crossbars is still below 10%V_DD and would demand for high costly sense amplifiers.