Programming margin enlargement by material engineering for multilevel storage in phase-change memory

In this work, we investigate the effect of the material engineering on programming margin in the double-layered phase-change memory, which is the most important parameter for the stability of multilevel storage. Compared with the TiN/SbTeN cell, the TiSiN/GeSbTe double-layered cell exhibits the resistance ratio of the highest to lowest resistance levels up to two to three orders of magnitude, indicating much larger programming margin and thus higher stability and/or more available levels. Our calculation results show that the resistivities of the top heating layer and the phase-change layer have a significant effect on the programming margin.

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