The impact of melting during reset operation on the reliability of phase change memory

Author

Du, Pei-Ying ; Wu, Jau-Yi ; Hsu, Tzu-Hsuan ; Lee, Ming-Hsiu ; Wang, Tien-Yen ; Cheng, Huai-Yu ; Lai, Erh-Kun ; Lai, Sheng-Chih ; Lung, Hsiang-Lan ; Kim, SangBum ; BrightSky, Matthew J. ; Zhu, Yu ; Mittal, Surbhi ; Cheek, Roger ; Raoux, Simone ; Joseph, Er

Author_Institution

Macronix Emerging Central Lab., Macronix Int. Co., Ltd., Hsinchu, Taiwan

fYear

2012

fDate

15-19 April 2012

Abstract

Operation impact on endurance performance in GST-based phase change memory is investigated from small arrays to large test chips. SET operation induced electromigration and phase segregation are observed. For the first time, the RESET melting healing effect is proposed to partially repair the SET induced damage and further extend the endurance. This concept can be easily implemented by accordingly designing the control circuits.

Keywords

arrays; circuit reliability; electromigration; melting; phase change memories; segregation; GST-based phase change memory; RESET melting healing effect; SET induced damage; SET operation; control circuits; electromigration; large test chips; operation impact; phase change memory reliability; phase segregation; reset operation; Conductivity; Electromigration; Maintenance engineering; Phase change materials; Phase change memory; Resistance; Tin; Endurance; RESET operation; electromigration; melting; phasechange memory (PCM); reliability; segregation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS), 2012 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA

ISSN

1541-7026

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1678-2

Electronic_ISBN

1541-7026

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IRPS.2012.6241872

Filename

6241872