Title :
Thermal Boundary Resistance Measurements for Phase-Change Memory Devices
Author :
Reifenberg, John P. ; Chang, Kuo-wei ; Panzer, Matthew A. ; Kim, SangBum ; Rowlette, Jeremy A. ; Asheghi, Mehdi ; Wong, H. -S Philip ; Goodson, Kenneth E.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Mech. Eng., Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA, USA
Abstract :
Thermal interfaces play a key role in determining the programming energy of phase-change memory (PCM) devices. This letter reports the picosecond thermoreflectance measurements of thermal boundary resistance (TBR) at TiN/GST and Al/TiN interfaces, as well as the intrinsic thermal conductivity measurements of fcc GST between 30??C and 325??C. The TiN/GST TBR decreases with temperature from ~26 to ~18 m2??K/GW, and the Al/TiN ranges from ~7 to 2.4 m2??K/GW. A TBR of 10 m2??K/GW is equivalent in thermal resistance to ~192 nm of TiN. The fcc GST conductivity increases with temperature between ~0.44 and 0.59 W/m/K. A detailed understanding of TBR is essential for optimizing the PCM technology.
Keywords :
phase change memories; thermal resistance; thermoreflectance; Al-TiN; TiN-Ge2Sb2Te5; phase-change memory devices; picosecond thermoreflectance measurements; thermal boundary resistance measurements; thermal interfaces; Nonvolatile memories; phase-change memory (PCM); thermal boundary resistance (TBR);
Journal_Title :
Electron Device Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LED.2009.2035139
