Carbon-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 phase-change memory devices featuring reduced RESET current and power consumption

In this paper, carbon-doped Ge<sub>2</sub>Sb<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>5</sub>, integrating from 5% to 15% of carbon content, is studied as an alternative phase-change material. Accurate electrical characterizations were performed both on large and shrinked PCM devices. Compared to pure Ge<sub>2</sub>Sb<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>5</sub> based reference devices, a wide decrease of about 50% of the RESET current, which translates into a RESET power reduction of about 25%, is observed when 5% of carbon is added to Ge<sub>2</sub>Sb<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>5</sub>. Moreover, an improved endurance up to 10<sup>8</sup> cycles is obtained while maintaining a programming window higher than 2 orders of magnitude. An increase of about 30% of the activation energy for the crystallization process is also observed. Therefore, this paper suggests that Ge<sub>2</sub>Sb<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>5</sub> doped with 5% of carbon is a promising phase-change material for future PCM technology.

[1]  V. Weidenhof,et al.  Structural transformations of Ge2Sb2Te5 films studied by electrical resistance measurements , 2000 .

[2]  G. Reimbold,et al.  Highly automated sequence for Phase Change Memory test structure characterization , 2010, 2010 International Conference on Microelectronic Test Structures (ICMTS).

[3]  B. Gleixner,et al.  Data Retention Characterization of Phase-Change Memory Arrays , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium Proceedings. 45th Annual.

[4]  G. Reimbold,et al.  On Carbon doping to improve GeTe-based Phase-Change Memory data retention at high temperature , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Memory Workshop.

[5]  K. Osada,et al.  Oxygen-doped gesbte phase-change memory cells featuring 1.5 V/100-/spl mu/A standard 0.13/spl mu/m CMOS operations , 2005, IEEE InternationalElectron Devices Meeting, 2005. IEDM Technical Digest..

[6]  H.-S. Philip Wong,et al.  Phase Change Memory , 2010, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[7]  E. Eleftheriou,et al.  Drift-Tolerant Multilevel Phase-Change Memory , 2011, 2011 3rd IEEE International Memory Workshop (IMW).

[8]  J. Nodin,et al.  Comparative Assessment of GST and GeTe Materials for Application to Embedded Phase-Change Memory Devices , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Memory Workshop.

[9]  P. Zuliani,et al.  Phase Change Memory technology for embedded non volatile memory applications for 90nm and beyond , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM).

[10]  T. Tang,et al.  Si doping in Ge2Sb2Te5 film to reduce the writing current of phase change memory , 2007 .

[11]  A. Cabrini,et al.  Effects of Alloy Composition on Multilevel Operation in Self-Heating Phase Change Memories , 2011, 2011 3rd IEEE International Memory Workshop (IMW).