Physical Models of Program and Read Fluctuations in Metal Oxide Resistive RAM

摘要

The explosive growth of digital data poses increasing demand for novel hardware capable of storing, searching, and analyzing large amounts of data with high efficiency and low power consumption. In this context, resistive switching memories (RRAM) are under scrutiny for storage-class memories and in-memory computing to alleviate or even suppress the von Neumann bottleneck between memory and the central processing unit (CPU). RRAM devices provide an ideal solution to solve this dilemma, thanks to their high speed, low power, 3D integration and scalability. However, fundamental issues of switching variability and resistance stability must be understood and solved for a mature RRAM technology. This work addresses program and read variability in RRAM, presenting an overview of physical models to describe and predict statistical variations and their impact on device reliability.