Physics of the Voltage Constant in Multilevel Switching of Conductive Bridge Resistive Memory

Abstract
The multilevel switching of conductive bridge resistive memory is characterized by the ON-state resistance (R ON) being inversely proportional to the compliance current (I CC). The constant of this relation is shown to be universally correlated to the minimum SET voltage (V SET(min)) for all conductive bridge devices. V SET(min), required to switch the memory from high resistance state to low resistance state, can be extracted using small voltage sweep rates. The correlation has been verified by experiments on Cu/TaO x /Pt devices and confirmed for data on resistive devices reported in the literature. The physical domain of validity for the R ONI CC relation has been established.