Temperature and series resistance effect on electrical characteristics of epitaxial diode array for phase-change memory application

Temperature dependence and series resistance effect on the electrical characteristics of 40nm node epitaxial PN junction diode array for phase-change memory application were investigated in a temperature range of 233K–358K. According to dual-trench isolation and silicon epitaxial diode array process scheme, buried N+ layer (BNL) acting as word line has played a significant role of phase-change memory structure design and access device scaling. The current-voltage (I–V) curve of the PN junction shows correlation with size dependence and temperature variation. By extrapolating the forward saturation current, the evaluated ideality factor was observed to decrease from 1.18 to 1.06 in the temperature range from 233 to 358K. With 16×16 diode array dimension scaling and BNL series resistance shrinking, forward current of PN junction in predominant role increases with temperature. Temperature and size dependence analysis can assist device design to promote 16×16 epitaxial diode array electrical characteristics for next-generation non-volatile memory application, especially for phase-change memory.