Modeling Resistance Instabilities of Set and Reset States in Phase Change Memory With Ge-Rich GeSbTe

Author

Ciocchini, Nicola ; Palumbo, Elisabetta ; Borghi, M. ; Zuliani, Paola ; Annunziata, Roberto ; Ielmini, Daniele

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Elettron., Inf. e Bioing., Politec. di Milano, Milan, Italy

Volume

61

Issue

6

fYear

2014

fDate

Jun-14

Firstpage

2136

Lastpage

2144

Abstract

To satisfy the growing market demand for embedded nonvolatile memory, alternative solutions to Flash technology are currently under investigation. Among these, phase change memory (PCM) is attracting strong interest due to the low cost of integration with the CMOS front-end and good scalability. Embedded PCM, however, must feature high reliability during both packaging and functional stages. This paper studies reliability of PCM based on Ge-rich GeSbTe, providing evidence for resistance drift and decay in both the reset and set states. Set-state instability is attributed to grain-boundary relaxation and grain growth. A unified model is presented, capable of predicting the reliability of set/reset states at elevated temperature.

Keywords

CMOS memory circuits; antimony alloys; electronics packaging; flash memories; germanium alloys; grain boundaries; grain growth; integrated circuit reliability; phase change memories; random-access storage; tellurium alloys; CMOS front-end; Ge-rich GeSbTe; GeSbTe; PCM; embedded nonvolatile memory; flash technology; functional stages; grain boundary relaxation; grain growth; packaging; phase change memory; reliability; reset states; resistance instability; scalability; set-state instability; Annealing; Crystallization; Electrical resistance measurement; Metals; Phase change materials; Resistance; Temperature measurement; Embedded memory; phase change memory (PCM); reliability modeling; set drift; soldering; soldering.;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2014.2313889

Filename

6798727