New amorphous-silicon electrically programmable nonvolatile switching device

The paper reports preliminary data on the characteristics of a new electronic switching device based on amorphous silicon structures. The device is polar, and is switched from OFF to ON (WRITE) or ON to OFF (ERASE) by voltages opposite signs; the threshold voltage for the WRITE operation is 4 ¿8 V, depending on the device, and for ERASE it is ¿ 1 V. The OFF and ON resistances are typically l M¿, and in the range 50¿300¿, respectively. Experimental devices have been switched through 105 WRITE and ERASE cycles, and the prospects are that this could be considerably increased. Particularly notable features of the new memory device are its extremely fast transition times (100 ns or less for both the WRITE or ERASE operations) and the very low energy involved in the switching transition (<10¿6 J). Present results indicate that the threshold voltages are only slightly dependent on temperature.