R&D: Introducing Spontaneously Phase-Separated Heterogeneous Interfaces Enables Low Power Consumption and High Reliability for Phase Change Memory

Advanced Electronic Materials has published an article written by Yuntao Zeng, Han Li, Yunlai Zhu, School of Integrated Circuits, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074 China, Xiaomin Cheng, School of Integrated Circuits, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074 China, Hubei Yangtze Memory Laboratories, Wuhan, 430205 China, and Yangtze Advanced Memory Industrial Innovation Center, Wuhan, 430014 China, Ming Xu, School of Integrated Circuits, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074 China, and Hubei Yangtze Memory Laboratories, Wuhan, 430205 China, Hao Tong, School of Integrated Circuits, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074 China, Hubei Yangtze Memory Laboratories, Wuhan, 430205 China, and Xiangshui Miao, School of Integrated Circuits, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074 China.

Abstract: “Phase-change memory is one of the most promising candidates for the next generation nonvolatile memory, but their high power consumption and low reliability remain bottleneck problems that limit the data storage density and its storage-class memory application. Here, an innovative phase change material with embedded self-precipitated interfaces, where the nanoscale grains of phase change material are cut into interconnecting ‘crystal islands’ by thermally stable self-precipitated material with low thermal conductivity, is proposed. The precipitated material provides both thermal and atomic migration confinements in three dimensions. The thermal confinement enables low power consumption, and the atomic migration confinement enables high device reliability. The devices based on spontaneously phase-separated O-doped Sb₂Te₃ verify the material design, where Sb oxide acts as the precipitated heterogeneous phase and Sb–Te alloy as the phase change material. O-doped Sb₂Te₃ device with 250 nm hole diameter shows an ultralow power consumption, down to a few hundreds of femtojoule, which is comparable with those of phase change nanowires. Besides, good thermal stability and low resistivity drift (drift coefficient 0.005) as well as excellent cycle endurance up to 10⁸ times are also obtained at the same time. The doping fabrication process is quite compatible with current semiconductor industry.“