A Kinetic Monte Carlo Simulator to Characterize Resistive Switching and Charge Conduction in Ni/HfO2/Si RRAMs

A 3D kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) simulation tool has been developed to study the resistive switching (RS) processes that allow Ni/HfO₂/Si devices to work as non-volatile memories. The simulator is tuned with numerous experimental data and it can reproduce the device current in forming, set and reset processes, the cycle-to-cycle variability and other characteristics linked to the stochasticity of RS operation. The evolution of conductive filaments (CFs) for different RS cycles is analyzed in depth, as well as the filaments density and resistance.