Nonvolatile memory technologies in Si-based electronics date back to the 1990s. Ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET) was one of the most promising devices replacing the conventional Flash memory facing physical scaling limitations at those times. A variant of charge storage memory referred to as Flash memory is widely used in consumer electronic products such as cell phones and music players while NAND Flash-based solid-state disks (SSDs) are increasingly displacing hard disk drives as the primary storage device in laptops, desktops, and even data centers. The integration limit of Flash memories is approaching, and many new types of memory to replace conventional Flash memories have been proposed. Emerging memory technologies promise new memories to store more data at less cost than the expensive-to-build silicon chips used by popular consumer gadgets including digital cameras, cell phones and portable music players. They are being investigated and lead to the future as potential alternatives to existing memories in future computing systems. Emerging nonvolatile memory technologies such as magnetic random-access memory (MRAM), spin-transfer torque random-access memory (STT-RAM), ferroelectric random-access memory (FeRAM), phase-change memory (PCM), and resistive random-access memory (RRAM) combine the speed of static random-access memory (SRAM), the density of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), and the nonvolatility of Flash memory and so become very attractive as another possibility for future memory hierarchies. Many other new classes of emerging memory technologies such as transparent and plastic, three-dimensional (3-D), and quantum dot memory technologies have also gained tremendous popularity in recent years. Subsequently, not an exaggeration to say that computer memory could soon earn the ultimate commercial validation for commercial scale-up and production the cheap plastic knockoff. Therefore, this review is devoted to the rapidly developing new class of memory technologies and scaling of scientific procedures based on an investigation of recent progress in advanced Flash memory devices.

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Overview of emerging nonvolatile memory technologies

Resistive switching (RS) is an interesting property shown by some materials systems that, especially during the last decade, has gained a lot of interest for the fabrication of electronic devices, with electronic nonvolatile memories being those that have received the most attention. The presence and quality of the RS phenomenon in a materials system can be studied using different prototype cells, performing different experiments, displaying different figures of merit, and developing different computational analyses. Therefore, the real usefulness and impact of the findings presented in each study for the RS technology will be also different. This manuscript describes the most recommendable methodologies for the fabrication, characterization, and simulation of RS devices, as well as the proper methods to display the data obtained. The idea is to help the scientific community to evaluate the real usefulness and impact of an RS study for the development of RS technology. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

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Recommended Methods to Study Resistive Switching Devices

Resistive switching (RS) phenomena are reversible changes in the metastable resistance state induced by external electric fields. After discovery ∼50 years ago, RS phenomena have attracted great attention due to their potential application in next-generation electrical devices. Considerable research has been performed to understand the physical mechanisms of RS and explore the feasibility and limits of such devices. There have also been several reviews on RS that attempt to explain the microscopic origins of how regions that were originally insulators can change into conductors. However, little attention has been paid to the most important factor in determining resistance: how conducting local regions are interconnected. Here, we provide an overview of the underlying physics behind connectivity changes in highly conductive regions under an electric field. We first classify RS phenomena according to their characteristic current–voltage curves: unipolar, bipolar, and threshold switchings. Second, we outline the microscopic origins of RS in oxides, focusing on the roles of oxygen vacancies: the effect of concentration, the mechanisms of channel formation and rupture, and the driving forces of oxygen vacancies. Third, we review RS studies from the perspective of statistical physics to understand connectivity change in RS phenomena. We discuss percolation model approaches and the theory for the scaling behaviors of numerous transport properties observed in RS. Fourth, we review various switching-type conversion phenomena in RS: bipolar-unipolar, memory-threshold, figure-of-eight, and counter-figure-of-eight conversions. Finally, we review several related technological issues, such as improvement in high resistance fluctuations, sneak-path problems, and multilevel switching problems.

Resistive switching phenomena: A review of statistical physics approaches

The existence of reversible resistance switching (RS) behaviors induced by electric stimulus has been known for some time, and these intriguing physical phenomena have been observed in numerous materials, including oxides. As conventional charge-based random access memory is expected to face a size limit in the near future, a surge of renewed interest has been developed in RS phenomena for possible applications in small nonvolatile memory devices called resistance random access memory (RRAM). Of particular interest is unipolar RS, which shows the RS at two values of applied voltage of the same polarity. The unipolar RS exhibits a much larger resistance change than other RS phenomena, and this greatly simplifies the process of reading the memory state. When fabricated with oxide p-n diodes, memory cells using unipolar RS can be stacked vertically, which has the potential for dramatically increasing memory density. Therefore, unipolar RRAM may be a good candidate for multi-stacked, high density, nonvolatile memory. The most important scientific and technical issues concerning unipolar RS are how it works and the identification of its controlling parameters. Some studies have reported that unipolar RS comes from a homogeneous/inhomogeneous transition of current distribution, while others maintain that it comes from the formation and rupture of conducting filaments. Even with recent extensive studies on unipolar RS, its basic origin is still far from being understood. In addition, no model exists that actually explains how the reversible switching can occur at two values of applied voltage. This lack of a quantitative model poses a major barrier for unipolar RRAM applications. In this study, we describe RS behavior in polycrystalline TiO2 film. To explain the basic mechanism of unipolar RS behavior, we propose a new percolation model based on a network of ‘‘circuit breakers’’ with two switchable metastable states. The random circuit breaker (RCB) network model can explain the long-standing material issue of how unipolar RS occurs. This simple percolation model is different from the conventional percolation models, which have dealt only with static or irreversible dynamic processes. In addition, the RCB network model provides an indication of how to overcome the substantial distribution of switching voltages, which is currently considered the most serious obstacle to practical unipolar RRAM applications. The unipolar RS phenomenon can be explained by the current (I)-voltage (V) curves in Figure 1a, which are derived from measurements of our polycrystalline TiO2 thin capacitors. At the pristine state (green dot), they are in an insulating state. As the external voltage Vext increases from zero and reaches a threshold voltage Vforming, a sudden increase occurs in the current. If the current is not limited to a certain value, here called the compliance current Icomp, the TiO2 capacitor would experience a dielectric breakdown and be destroyed. However, [*] Prof. T. W. Noh, S. C. Chae, S. B. Lee, S. H Chang, Dr. C. Liu ReCOE & FPRD, Department of Physics and Astronomy Seoul National University Seoul 151-747 (Korea) E-mail: twnoh@snu.ac.kr

Random circuit breaker network model for unipolar resistance switching (Advanced Materials (2008) 20 (1154))

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw/bitstream/11536/21381/1/000316677900001.pdf

Growth, dielectric properties, and memory device applications of ZrO2 thin films

The Ti/ZrO2/Pt resistive memory devices with one transistor and one resistor (1T1R) architecture are successfully fabricated in this letter. The tested devices show low operation current (20 μA), low switching voltage (set/reset, 0.8/-1 V), and reliable data retention for low-resistance state (LRS) with a 20-μA set current at 80°C (over ten years) via an excellent current limiter, namely, a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). In addition, multilevel storage characteristics are also demonstrated by modulating the amplitude of the MOSFET gate voltage. The various LRS levels obtained are possibly attributed to the formation of different numbers and sizes of conducting filaments consisting of oxygen vacancies caused by an external electric field. Moreover, reproducible resistive switching characteristics up to 2000 switching cycles are achieved in the same device. Our 1T1R ZrO2-based resistive switching access memory with low-power and highly reliable multilevel operation has high potential for practical applications.

Low-Power and Highly Reliable Multilevel Operation in $ \hbox{ZrO}_{2}$ 1T1R RRAM

The effects of vanadium doping on resistive switching (RS) characteristics and mechanisms of RF-sputtered SrZrO3 (SZO)-based thin films are investigated in this paper. The physical and electrical properties of SZO-based thin films are modulated by vanadium doping due to the Zr4+ ion replaced by V5+, further affecting the RS parameters of SZO-based thin films. The conduction mechanisms of SZO-based thin films are dominated by ohmic conduction (hoping conduction) and Frenkel-Poole emission for the low resistance state (LRS) and the high resistance state (HRS), respectively. The turn-on process might be attributed to the formation of conducting filaments consisting of oxygen vacancies with the effective barrier height (φB,eff) in the range of 0.10-0.13 eV, whereas the turn-off process might result from thermally assisted oxidation of oxygen vacancies by the Joule heating effect. Furthermore, the introduction of the high valence cation (V5+) in a Zr4+ site of SZO crystalline structure can suppress the formation of oxygen vacancies due to the charge neutrality restriction. Such suppression leads to the changes in the forming voltage, turn-on voltage, HRS resistance, dielectric constant, and φB,eff with vanadium doping concentration up to 0.2 mol%, which is within the solid solubility limit based on our measured lattice constants and Vegard's law.

Effects of Vanadium Doping on Resistive Switching Characteristics and Mechanisms of $\hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ -Based Memory Films

The stabilization of the resistive switching properties is necessary to realize the memory application of the SrZrO3(SZO)-based resistive switching devices. During continuous resistive switching cycle, broad variations of the resistive switching parameters of the SZO-based memory devices can be improved by a thin embedded Cr layer. The Cr metal layer is proposed to diffuse into and dope the SZO thin film to produce the space charge region, further reducing the effective resistive switching region. Hence, the good stabilization of the resistive switching properties can be obtained in the SZO films with embedded Cr layer.

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/8304/1/000259812900008.pdf

Improvement of Resistive Switching Characteristics in $\hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ Thin Films With Embedded Cr Layer

This paper reports the effects of rapid thermal annealing (RTA) on resistive switching (RS) characteristics and mechanisms of SrZrO3 (SZO)-based memory devices. SZO thin films were deposited on LaNiO3 (LNO) (100)/Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si using radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and were followed by an RTA process in N2, Ar, and O2 ambients, respectively, at various temperatures for improving RS performance. Experimental results indicate that an SZO device annealed in O2 at 600°C (O2-600) exhibits stable RS properties and has a high device yield ( 90%), a reliable retention characteristic (up to 1 × 106 s at 100°C), and steady nondestructive readout properties (over 1.4 × 104 s at 100°C). However, by increasing RTA temperature to more than 700°C, random formation of LNO (110) precipitates on the bottom surface of SZO grains might shorten the effective thickness of the SZO thin films. Furthermore, a strong electric field possibly occurs at the region between Al top electrodes and low-resistivity LNO precipitates. It is speculated that an RS phenomenon, which occurs within SZO grains instead of on grain boundaries, easily leads to RS failure, further resulting in severe degradation of device yield in the O2-700 and O2-800 devices. When compared with other devices, O2-600 SZO memory devices exhibit highly reliable RS characteristics.

High Device Yield of Resistive Switching Characteristics in Oxygen-Annealed $\hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ Memory Devices

A non-volatile memory and a method for fabricating the same are presented The non-volatile memory includes a bottom conductive layer A resistive switching composite layer is disposed on the bottom conductive layer The resistive switching composite layer includes first oxide atomic layers having a first layer number, and second oxide atomic layers having a second layer number disposed on the first oxide atomic layers A top conductive layer is disposed on the resistive switching composite layer

Ming-Chi Wu

Papers

Low-Power and Highly Reliable Multilevel Operation in $ \hbox{ZrO}_{2}$ 1T1R RRAM

Effects of Vanadium Doping on Resistive Switching Characteristics and Mechanisms of $\hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ -Based Memory Films

Improvement of Resistive Switching Characteristics in $\hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ Thin Films With Embedded Cr Layer

High Device Yield of Resistive Switching Characteristics in Oxygen-Annealed $\hbox{SrZrO}_{3}$ Memory Devices

Non-volatile memory and method for fabricating the same