Enhanced cycling endurance in phase change memory via electrical control of switching induced atomic migration

Based on field induced atomic migration, one of the cycling endurance failure mechanisms in phase change memories, we propose an electrical treatment method to reduce atomic migration. The electric treatment is performed by applying compensation voltage after set or reset voltage applications, and we have a substantial enhancement of cycling endurance characteristics. The polarity of the compensation voltage is negative with respect to the programming voltages. To further investigate the effect of the electrical treatment, we introduced a parameter named melting voltage, which steadily increases as the number of set/reset cycling increases. This observation is consistent with the increase of resistance at the reset voltage, which supports void formation in the active region of Ge2Sb2Te5 with cycling stress.