The insufficient retention prevents the resistive random access memory from intended application, such as code storage, FPGA, encryption, and others. The retention characteristics of high resistance state (HRS) switching from different low resistance state (LRS) were investigated in a 1-kb array with one transistor and one resistor configuration. The HRS degradation was found strongly dependent on the LRS: the lower the resistance of the LRS (R LRS) is, the worse HRS retention will be. According to the quantum point contact model, the HRS corresponds to a tiny tunnel gap or neck bridge with atomic size in the filament. The degradation of HRS is due to the filling or widening of the neck point by the diffusion of copper species from the residual filament. As the residual filament is stronger in case of the lower R LRS, the active area around the neck point for copper species diffusion is larger, resulting in higher diffusion probability and faster degradation of HRS during the temperature-accelerated retention measurement.
Keywords: High resistance state (HRS); Quantum point contact (QPC) model; Resistive random access memory (RRAM); Retention.