Investigation on amorphous InGaZnO based resistive switching memory with low-power, high-speed, high reliability

Recently, non-volatile memory (NVM) has been widely used in electronic devices. Nowadays, the prevailing NVM is Flash memory. However, it is generally believed that the conventional Flash memory will approach its scaling limit within about a decade. The resistive random access memory (RRAM) is emerging as one of the potential candidates for future memory replacement because of its high storage density, low power consumption as well as simple structure. The purpose of this work is to develop a reliable a-InGaZnO based resistive switching memory. We investigate the resistive switching characteristics of TiN/Ti/IGZO/Pt structure and TiN/IGZO/Pt structure. The device with TiN/Ti/IGZO/Pt structure exhibits stable bipolar resistive switching. The impact of inserting a Ti interlayer is studied by material analyses. The device shows excellent resistive switching properties. For example, the DC sweep endurance can achieve over 1000 times; and the pulse induced switching cycles can reach at least 10,000 times. Furthermore, the impact of different sputtering ambience, the variable temperature measurement, and the conduction mechanisms are also investigated. According to our experiments, we propose a model to explain the resistive switching phenomenon observed in our devices.