Optimization of programming current on endurance of phase change memory

Author

Kim, S. ; Du, P.Y. ; Li, J. ; Breitwisch, M. ; Zhu, Y. ; Mittal, S. ; Cheek, R. ; Hsu, T.-H. ; Lee, M.H. ; Schrott, A. ; Raoux, S. ; Cheng, H.Y. ; Lai, S.-C. ; Wu, J.Y. ; Wang, T.Y. ; Joseph, E.A. ; Lai, E.K. ; Ray, A. ; Lung, H.-L. ; Lam, C.

Author_Institution

IBM/Macronix PCRAM Joint Project, IBM T. J. Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA

fYear

2012

fDate

23-25 April 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

2

Abstract

We study the effect of programming current on the endurance failure of phase change memory and propose a general scheme of optimizing programming currents for the most endurance cycles. We consider two major endurance failure modes, stuck-SET and open failure. We show that higher current does not necessarily cause, and even prevents the earlier open failure and attribute it to phase-dependent open-failure mechanisms. As for the stuck-SET failure, RESET current is optimized to balance material segregation effect and RESET current margin. The overall programming conditions are optimized by combining open and stuck-SET failure characteristic curves.

Keywords

failure analysis; phase change memories; RESET current margin; endurance cycles; endurance failure modes; material segregation effect; open failure; optimization; phase change memory; phase-dependent open-failure mechanisms; programming conditions; programming current; stuck-SET failure characteristic curves; Current density; Optimization; Phase change materials; Phase change memory; Programming; Resistance;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Technology, Systems, and Applications (VLSI-TSA), 2012 International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Hsinchu

ISSN

1930-8868

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-2083-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VLSI-TSA.2012.6210122

Filename

6210122