Filament formation and the final resistance modeling in amorphous-silicon vertical programmable element

Recent results on an amorphous-silicon vertical programmable element (PEL) made by ion implantation of single crystal silicon are presented. This device has already been demonstrated in 4 K and 16 K memory designs and EPGAs. It can be incorporated within conventional PMOS, NMOS, CMOS, bipolar, and BiCMOS designs. Its preprogrammed resistance exceeds 10/sup 7/ Omega , while its postprogrammed resistance can be 1 k Omega or lower. The ion-implanted programmable element (IPEL) and other vertical fuses offer unique features like a long retention time at elevated temperatures and very small footprint. They can be scaled down to nanoelectronics circuits with functional density exceeding 10/sup 9/ devices/cm/sup 2/.<
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