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Data retention characteristics and a failure mechanism of TaN/CuxO/Cu resistive memory device are investigated by a temperature-accelerated test method. Data retention capability at 85 °C is sufficiently longer than 10 years by using two different methods: simple extrapolation and Arrhenius equation. The high resistance state fails to low resistance state and low resistance state fails to high resistance state at the elevated temperature. It is attributed that different retention-failure mechanisms are responsible for high resistance state and low resistance state, respectively. A filament/charge trapped combined model is presented to clarify the retention-failure mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors found CuOx thin film with gradual oxygen concentration (GOC) distribution enhances resistive switching characteristics for nonvolatile memory applications. By using Al/GOC CuOx/Cu structure, not only no forming is needed but also the endurance of switching is greatly enhanced. The device with GOC CuOx demonstrates resistance on/off ratio of greater than 100 and endurance of more than 12 000 cycles. The “forming-free” characteristics appear related to thinner CuO and the endurance enhancement appears related to gradual gradient of oxygen vacancies in CuOx. Thus, the thickness of CuO and distribution of oxygen (as well as vacancies) play important roles for performance improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]