Reliability Impact of Chalcogenide-Structure Relaxation in Phase-Change Memory (PCM) Cells-Part I: Experimental Study

The phase-change memory (PCM) relies on the electrical properties of the chalcogenide materials to represent the stored bit of information. As a result, data stability depends on structural relaxation (SR) in the amorphous chalcogenide phase, which results in a temperature-accelerated time evolution...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on electron devices 2009-05, Vol.56 (5), p.1070-1077
Main Authors: Ielmini, D., Sharma, D., Lavizzari, S., Lacaita, A.L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amorphous semiconductors
Annealing
Applied sciences
chalcogenide materials
Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing
Distance measurement
Electronics
Exact sciences and technology
Integrated circuits
Integrated circuits by function (including memories and processors)
nonvolatile memory
Phase change materials
phase-change memory (PCM)
Reliability
reliability estimation
reliability modeling
Resistance
Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices
Strontium
Temperature measurement
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Summary:The phase-change memory (PCM) relies on the electrical properties of the chalcogenide materials to represent the stored bit of information. As a result, data stability depends on structural relaxation (SR) in the amorphous chalcogenide phase, which results in a temperature-accelerated time evolution of the electrical properties of the active material. Here, we address the time, temperature, and bias dependence of SR effects on the amorphous Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 (GST) material used in PCM cells. Electrical measurements for increasing annealing time and temperature indicate that SR can be described by a defect annihilation process in the amorphous chalcogenide material. Finally, the stability of chalcogenide resistance as a function of the read conditions is discussed, for the purpose of reducing the impact of SR on the reliability of PCM devices.
ISSN:0018-9383
1557-9646
DOI:10.1109/TED.2009.2016397