Investigation of Over-Reset Programming in Phase Change Memory

In this work, we provide a detailed electrical and physical characterization of the over-reset (OR) state in terms of amorphous volume shape/thickness, activation energy for conduction, time drift exponent, 1/f noise intensity and threshold voltage. Experimental data are compared with simulations accounting for both the transport and switching mechanisms. Comparison highlights that OR is due to a reversible modification of the active material in the amorphous volume.