A Study of Gamma-Ray Exposure of Cu-SiO2 Programmable Metallization Cells

作者：Chen W^*; Barnaby H J; Kozicki M N; Edwards A H; Gonzalez Velo Y; Fang R; Holbert K E; Yu S; Yu W

来源：IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, 2015, 62(6): 2404-2411.

DOI：10.1109/TNS.2015.2478883

• Conductive-bridging random access memory (CBRAM)
• CMOS-compatibility
• gamma-ray radiation
• non-volatile memory
• programmable metallization cell
• resistive switching
• SiO2

The Cu-SiO2 based programmable metallization cell (PMC) is a promising alternative to the Ag-chalcogenide glass PMC because of its low power consumption and CMOS-compatibility. Understanding its total ionizing dose (TID) response helps in assessing the reliability of this technology in ionizing radiation environments and benefits its expansion in the space electronics market. In this paper, the impacts of TID on the switching characteristics of Cu-SiO2 PMC are investigated for the first time. The devices were step irradiated with (CO)-C-60 gamma-rays to a maximum dose of 7.1 Mrad (SiO2). The results show that gamma-ray irradiation has a negligible impact on the virgin-state and ON-state resistance of Cu-SiO2 PMCs. The OFF-state resistance slightly decreases after the first 1.5 Mrad(SiO2) of exposure, but this reduction saturates after higher levels of TID. Other switching characteristics such as the set voltage, multilevel switching capability and endurance were also studied, all of which did not show observable changes after gamma-ray radiation. The immunity to ionizing radiation is attributed to the suppression of the photo-doping process.

• 出版日期2015-12