RADAR: A Fast and Energy-Efficient Programming Technique for Multiple Bits-Per-Cell RRAM Arrays

HfO 2 -based resistive RAM (RRAM) is an emerging nonvolatile memory technology that has recently been shown capable of storing multiple bits-per-cell. The energy/delay costs of an RRAM write operation are dependent on the number of pulses required for RRAM programming. The pulse count is often large...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on electron devices 2021-09, Vol.68 (9), p.4397-4403
Main Authors: Le, Binh Q., Levy, Akash, Wu, Tony F., Radway, Robert M., Hsieh, E. Ray, Zheng, Xin, Nelson, Mark, Raina, Priyanka, Wong, H.-S. Philip, Wong, Simon, Mitra, Subhasish
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bit error rate
CMOS
Computer architecture
Energy costs
Energy-efficient memory
Hafnium oxide
HfO₂ resistive RAM (RRAM)
Microprocessors
multiple bits-per-cell RRAM
nonvolatile memory
Programming
Radar
Random access memory
Resistance
RRAM programming
Tuning
Voltage control
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Summary:HfO 2 -based resistive RAM (RRAM) is an emerging nonvolatile memory technology that has recently been shown capable of storing multiple bits-per-cell. The energy/delay costs of an RRAM write operation are dependent on the number of pulses required for RRAM programming. The pulse count is often large when existing programming approaches are used for multiple bits-per-cell RRAM, especially when resistance ranges are allocated to account for retention. We present a new technique, Range-Dependent Adaptive Resistance (RADAR) Tuning, for fast and energy-efficient programming of multiple bits-per-cell RRAM arrays, using a combination of coarse- and fine-grained RRAM resistance tuning. Experimental data are collected on 16k cells from two 1Megacell (1M physical cells) 1T1R HfO 2 -based RRAM arrays fabricated in a 130-nm CMOS process. RADAR reduces the programming pulse count by 2.4X (for both uncycled cells and cells that have undergone 8k cycles) on average over existing programming techniques tested on the same RRAM arrays, with the same bit error rate targets.
ISSN:0018-9383
1557-9646
DOI:10.1109/TED.2021.3097975