Effects of cooperative ionic motion on programming kinetics of conductive-bridge memory cells

Cooperative ionic motion is identified as a key physical effect influencing the programming kinetics of Ag/GeS2/W conductive-bridge memory cells. Cooperative effects are suggested to cause the time required to program virgin cells to: (i) deviate from the exponential voltage dependence typically observed at high voltage if the GeS2 is very thin and (ii) increase dramatically at low voltage when programmed with a pulse train having a low duty cycle. A previously reported model is shown to account for both phenomena, and a kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm is described for making quantitative calculations. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3675870]