A GeSbTe phase-change memory cell featuring a tungsten heater electrode for low-power, highly stable, and short-read-cycle operations

Abstract

This paper presents a GeSbTe memory cell with a tungsten heater electrode. The cell has the lowest reset current (50 /spl mu/A) ever reported for a phase-change memory device. The factors responsible for re-amorphization, which increased the instability of crystallization are shown. The GeSbTe cell in this work offers a read-time within 2 nsec, which allows 200 MHz-chip operation with negligible effects of read disturbance.