Confined-chalcogenide phase-change memory with thin metal oxide interlayer for low reset current operation

A confined-chalcogenide phase-change memory (CC) with thin metal oxide interlayer (TMOI) aimed to lowering the reset current is proposed in this paper. This proposed structure offer a reduction of the reset current by 65%, 50% and 34.38% in comparison with a normal-bottom-contact (NBC) cell, CC cell and NBC with TMOI cell, respectively. The electrical and thermal characteristics were investigated by using finite element modeling based on electro-thermal physics. It is intriguingly found that the resent current of the proposed cell is significantly reduced by inserting a thin metal oxide (TiO₂) film in the middle Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) and in between GST and TiN heater. Furthermore, the melting shapes and effect of quench speed on the memory cell is also discussed. This implies the high-speed and low-power consumption CC with TMOI cell structure that can hold a promise as a future technology as memory devices.