A Temperature-Accelerated Method to Evaluate Data Retention of Resistive Switching Nonvolatile Memory

A switching model of conductivity modulation by a charge trapping process is proposed to describe the resistive switching in nonvolatile metal–insulator–metal (MIM) memory. Based on a quantitative detrapping analysis, retention is explained by the thermal release time of trapped charges, which is determined by trap depth and temperature. A characteristic temperature is defined at which a significant loss of retention would occur. A temperature-accelerated test is devised to measure the characteristic temperature and to give an early input on the worst-case retention for a given technology. The viability of this method is demonstrated using $\hbox{Cu}_{2}\hbox{O}$ MIM memory.