Analysis of Intrinsic Variation of Data Retention in Phase-Change Memory Using Phase-Field Method

We investigated the intrinsic variation of retention in phase-change memory using a phase-field method that is capable of depicting stochastic nucleation followed by the growth of the nucleated crystallites. We found that the median of the retention time increases upon scaling unlike the Monte Carlo results previously reported. More importantly, the industrial requirement, which is ten years at 70 °C, can be guaranteed for 1-ppb tail bits down to the 10-nm technology, although statistical spread increases.