Impact of Temperature on the Resistive Switching Behavior of Embedded hbox HfO 2 -Based RRAM Devices

• Published in: IEEE transactions on electron devices Vol. 58; no. 9; pp. 3124 - 3131
• Main Authors: Walczyk, Christian, Walczyk, Damian, Schroeder, Thomas, Bertaud, Thomas, Sowinska, Malgorzata, Lukosius, Mindaugas, Fraschke, Mirko, Wolansky, Dirk, Tillack, Bernd, Miranda, Enrique, Wenger, Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-09-2011
• Subjects: Conduction band; Data storage; Devices; Electric potential; Mathematical models; Memory devices; Switching; Tin
• ISSN: 0018-9383; 1557-9646
• DOI: 10.1109/TED.2011.2160265

Back-end-of-line integrated hbox 1 hbox 1 Unknown character mu hbox m 2 Unknown character hbox TiN / HfO 2 / break hbox Ti / TiN MIM memory devices in a 0.25- mu hbox m complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology were built to investigate the conduction mechanism and the resistive switching behavior as a function of temperature. The temperature-dependent I - V characteristics in fresh devices are attributed to the Poole-Frenkel mechanism with an extracted trap energy level at phi approximately hbox 0.2 Unknown character hbox eV below the hbox HfO 2 conduction band. The trap level is associated with positively charged oxygen vacancies. The electroformed memory cells show a stable bipolar switching behavior in the temperature range from 213-413 K. The off -state current increases with temperature, whereas the on-state current can be described by a weak metallic behavior. Furthermore, the results suggest that the I - V cycling not only induces significant changes in the electrical properties of the MIM memory devices, i.e., the increase in the off-state current, but also stronger temperature dependence. The temperature effect on the on-state and off-state characteristics is modeled within the framework of the quantum point-contact model for dielectric breakdown using an effective temperature-dependent confinement potential.