Two-terminal memory with intrinsic rectifying characteristic

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9196831-B2
Application number	US-201314108160-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 16, 2013
Priority date	Mar 14, 2013
Publication date	Nov 24, 2015
Grant date	Nov 24, 2015

Abstract

Providing for two-terminal memory having an inherent rectifying characteristic(s) is described herein. By way of example, the two-terminal memory can be a resistive switching device having one or more “on” states and an “off” state, to facilitate storage of digital information. A conductive filament can be electrically isolated from an electrode of the two-terminal memory by a thin tunneling layer, which permits a tunneling current for voltages greater in magnitude than a positive rectifying voltage or a negative rectifying voltage. The two-terminal memory cell can therefore have high resistance to small voltages, mitigating leakage currents in an array of the two-terminal memory cells. In addition, the memory cell can be conductive above a rectifying voltage, enabling reading of the memory cell in response to a suitable read bias, and erasing of the memory cell in response to a suitable negative erase bias.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A memory cell, comprising:
a bottom electrode;
a top electrode comprising a material that is electrically conductive and configured to provide ions of the material under applied bias;
a switching layer comprising a second material, and that is formed as a non-stoichiometric amorphous structure that is electrically resistive and at least in part permeable to the ions of the material of the top electrode, wherein a subset of the ions migrate into the switc…

Assignees

• Crossbar Inc

Inventors

• Jo Sung Hyun

Classifications

• G11C2213/34

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C13/0011 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C2213/54

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C2213/73

  Physics · mapped topic

• G11C2213/72

  Physics · mapped topic