A Novel Phase Change Memory with a Separate Heater Characterized by Constant Resistance for Multilevel Storage

Abstract

A novel phase change memory structure with a separate heater was proposed for a multilevel storage. Finite element analysis was conducted to investigate the possibility of multilevel storage. 100 ns SET pulses, with an increasing amplitude from 0.5 V to 3 V, were applied for heating the phase change layer, Ge2Se2T5 (GST). From the simulation result, it was exhibited that the temperature in the GST layer increased gradually when an increasing pulse is applied to the separate heater layer (N-TiSi3). This implies that crystallization is well controlled by changing the amplitude of the applied SET pulse. The gradual increase in the temperature leads to gradual resistance drop, depending strongly on the capping material. The gradual resistance drop will allow multilevel storage for the memory device.