Isotropic and anisotropic scaling analysis of nanowire phase change memory

Author

Liu, Jie ; Yu, Bin ; Anantram, M.P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

15-18 Aug. 2011

Firstpage

1343

Lastpage

1347

Abstract

We recently investigated the isotropic scaling properties of nanowire (NW) phase change memory (PCM) [1]. In this paper, we extend our analysis also to anisotropic scaling. By combining electrothermal theory, thermodynamic physics, and numerical simulation, the analysis explains the superiority of NW PCM over conventional thin film PCM, and reveals the different scaling properties of the three widely used operation schemes (constant electric field, constant voltage, and constant current) of NW PCM. It is demonstrated that if the device is isotropically downscaled by a factor of 1/k (k >;1), the device operation energy (current) will be decreased by k³ (k) times, and the device operation speed will be increased by k² times. The impacts of NW radius and length on PCM device performance are analyzed. Based on the analysis results, the suggestions to optimize the NW PCM device design are given.

Keywords

nanowires; phase change memories; NW PCM; anisotropic scaling analysis; constant current; constant electric field; constant voltage; electrothermal theory; nanowire phase change memory; numerical simulation; thermodynamic physics; thin film PCM; Current density; Nanoscale devices; Phase change materials; Phase change memory; Sun; Switches;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nanotechnology (IEEE-NANO), 2011 11th IEEE Conference on

Conference_Location

Portland, OR

ISSN

1944-9399

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1514-3

Electronic_ISBN

1944-9399

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NANO.2011.6144493

Filename

6144493