Experimental Set-Up For Novel Energy Efficient Charge-based Resistive RAM (RRAM) Switching

This work explores a new method to reduce the energy consumption during the writing of process-spread resistive-based memories (RRAM), based on setting an initial electrical charge into a writing capacitor rather than applying constant voltage over a fixed time. By connecting a charged capacitor (constant charge source, CQS) to a RRAM device, we benefit of a lower energy requirement for setting the memory cells, for a given success rate. We propose a RRAM set circuit model, where switching conditions were extrapolated from experimental data. We then benchmark our proposed writing procedure with respect to the constant voltage source (CVS) scheme. Finally, we give experimental proof of concept by realization of a circuit interface that integrates the CQS protocol and is connected to a RRAM load. Results support the fact that setting the initial charge is a better choice to efficiently control the variability of the filamentary process in RRAM.