Effect of the Compliance Current on the Retention Time of Cu/HfO2-Based Memristive Devices

• DOI: 10.1007/s11664-021-08995-5
• Publication Date: 2021-05-11T15:31:15Z
• Authors: Khaled Humood; Sueda Saylan; Baker Mohammad; Maguy Abi Jaoude
• Keywords: Data retention; Retention time; Memristor; Non-Volatile Memory

Compliance current plays a very important role in the retention performance of memristive devices. Although it was established that low and high compliance currents lead to volatile and nonvolatile behavior, respectively, studying the influence of the intermediate compliance current as a method to control the retention has not been widely explored. This is an interesting feature because the memristive devices have captured the attention of the scientific community for the development of a broad spectrum of new applications beyond memory. In this work, the effect of the intermediate compliance current in forming-free Cu/HfO2-based memristive devices is investigated. Here we show the existence of an intermediate compliance current window between the volatile and nonvolatile operating regions wherein the device holds the retention for a short time in a stochastic mode. Furthermore, the variation in the retention time is evaluated with respect to different device electrical parameters including the charge, flux, run history, and ON-state resistance, as well as the switching time of the device. The results show that the retention time controlled by an intermediate compliance current exhibits substantial variation, and the cycle-to-cycle stochasticity in the retention time can be a representative quality parameter for the development of security-related applications.