Investigation of Single Event Induced Soft Errors in Programmable Metallization Cell Memory

• Published in: IEEE transactions on nuclear science Vol. 61; no. 6; pp. 3557 - 3563
• Main Authors: Mahalanabis, Debayan, Barnaby, Hugh J., Kozicki, Michael N., Bharadwaj, Vineeth, Rajabi, Saba
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.12.2014; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Chalcogenide; electrochemical memory cell; Integrated circuit metallization; Integrated circuit modeling; nano-ionic memory; programmable metallization cells (PMCs); radiation effects; Random access memory; Resistance; resistive RAM (ReRAM); single event effects; Single event transients; single event upset; Single event upsets; Transient analysis
• ISSN: 0018-9499; 1558-1578
• DOI: 10.1109/TNS.2014.2358235

Programmable metallization cell (PMC) devices belong to a class of non-volatile ionic resistive memory devices that have already demonstrated tolerance to high total doses of ionizing radiation. In this work, the susceptibility of integrated 1T-1R PMC memory array to ion strike induced single event upsets is analyzed. Circuit simulations that model single event transients in 1T-1R elements are performed using a PMC compact model which captures the voltage driven resistance change mechanism experimentally observed in such devices. The relationship between incident ion LET and change in PMC resistance and its consequent susceptibility to an upset is investigated through both simulation and experiment.