High Performance All Nonmetal SiN_x Resistive Random Access Memory with Strong Process Dependence

All-nonmetal resistive random access memory (RRAM) with a N⁺–Si/SiN_x/P⁺–Si structure was investigated in this study. The device performance of SiN_x developed using physical vapor deposition (PVD) was significantly better than that of a device fabricated using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The SiN_x RRAM device developed using PVD has a large resistance window that is larger than 10⁴ and exhibits good endurance to 10⁵ cycles under switching pulses of 1 μs and a retention time of 10⁴ s at 85 °C. Moreover, the SiN_x RRAM device developed using PVD had tighter device-to-device distribution of set and reset voltages than those developed using PECVD. Such tight distribution is crucial to realise a large-size cross-point array and integrate with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology to realise electronic neurons. The high performance of the SiN_x RRAM device developed using PVD is attributed to the abundant defects in the PVD dielectric that was supported by the analysed conduction mechanisms obtained from the measured current–voltage characteristics.