RESET Distribution Improvement of Phase Change Memory: The Impact of Pre-Programming

Author

Yuchan Wang ; Xiaogang Chen ; Yan Cheng ; Xilin Zhou ; Shilong Lv ; Yifeng Chen ; Yueqing Wang ; Mi Zhou ; Houpeng Chen ; Yiyun Zhang ; Zhitang Song ; Gaoming Feng

Author_Institution

State Key Lab. of Functional Mater. for Inf. & Nanotechnol. Lab., Shanghai Inst. of Micro-Syst. & Inf. Technol., Shanghai, China

Volume

35

Issue

5

fYear

2014

fDate

May-14

Firstpage

536

Lastpage

538

Abstract

Some nonvolatile phase change memory (PCM) cells with 80-nm heating electrodes are found very difficult to RESET at 3 mA, which directly affects the RESET distribution of the PCM. The large crystal grains with hexagonal structure in the active phase change area, discovered by transmission electron microscope, are the major reason. One preprogramming testing method is introduced, and the resistance distributions of the PCM cells before and after preprogramming are presented. Results show that the large hexagonal crystal grains have been eliminated, thus the resistance distributions have been greatly improved after preprogramming.

Keywords

electric resistance; electrodes; phase change memories; RESET distribution; heating electrodes; hexagonal crystal grains; phase change memory; preprogramming testing method; resistance distributions; transmission electron microscope; Crystals; Heating; Microscopy; Phase change materials; Phase change memory; Resistance; Phase change memory (PCM); RESET; pre-programming; pre-programming.; resistance distribution;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Device Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0741-3106

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LED.2014.2308909

Filename

6767089