Recent Progress in Resistance Change Memory

Resistance change memory (RRAM) is now attracting a lot of attention in parallel with phase change memory (PCM). Both memories are based on materials which exhibit nonvolatile changes in resistivity, through either the motion of charged species (RRAM) or through a crystalline-noncrystalline phase changes (PCM). Phase change memory is now viewed as a relatively near-term solution, while the RRAM has longer-term challenges and opportunities, which a large variety of materials research is addressing on a world-wide scale, mostly in academia. But, even though there are many promising results published, fundamental understanding of many aspects of the nonvolatile switching mechanism(s) or RRAM is still lacking. The authors look at some of the developments in resistance change memory, in particular the two types of RRAM materials: metal sulfides and metal oxides.