A physical based analytic model of RRAM operation for circuit simulation

A physical based analytic model of metal oxide based RRAM cell under DC and pulse operation modes is presented. In this model, the transport behaviors of oxygen vacancies and oxygen ions, metal conductivity, electron hopping and heat conduction and the parasitic capacitance and resistance effects are covered. The developed analytic model is verified and calibrated by measured data. Furthermore, we implement the analytic model in a 2×2 RRAM array simulation and investigate the reliability of RRAM array for the first time.

Introduction

Metal oxide based resistive-switching random access memory (RRAM) has attracted considerable interests as next generation of memory technologies [1]–[4]. Extensive researches have been touched to understand the resistive switching mechanisms and to improve the performance of RRAM [1]–[6]. For future memory application, the analytic model of a RRAM cell for circuit simulation is required. However, there are few works to address this issue [7]. In this paper, a set of physical based analytic model of the RRAM cell at DC and pulse operation modes are developed and implemented in the circuit simulator for the first time. The model can describe the main features of the RRAM cell under static and transient switching operations. The proposed model is verified and calibrated by the experimental data, and is implemented in circuit simulation. The simulation of a RRAM array with parasitic elements is performed to investigate the critical characteristics of the RRAM array such as the reliability.