GeSbTe

GeSbTe (germanium-antimony-tellurium or GST) is a

temperature is between 100 and 150 °C.

During writing, the material is erased, initialized into its

(DMAGeC) is also reported as the chloride containing and superior dimethylaminogermanium precursor for Ge deposition by MOCVD.

Material properties

GeSbTe is a ternary compound of

accounting for acceptor and donor like traps. GeSbTe has two stable states, crystalline and amorphous. The phase change mechanism from high resistance amorphous phase to low resistance crystalline phase in nano-timescale and threshold switching are two of the most important characteristic of GeSbTe.

Applications in phase-change memory

The unique characteristic that makes phase-change memory useful as a memory is the ability to effect a reversible phase change when heated or cooled, switching between stable amorphous and crystalline states. These alloys have high resistance in the amorphous state ‘0’ and are semimetals in the crystalline state ‘1’. In amorphous state, the atoms have short-range atomic order and low free electron density. The alloy also has high resistivity and activation energy. This distinguishes it from the crystalline state having low resistivity and activation energy, long-range atomic order and high free electron density. When used in phase-change memory, use of a short, high amplitude electric pulse such that the material reaches melting point and rapidly quenched changes the material from crystalline phase to amorphous phase is widely termed as RESET current and use of a relatively longer, low amplitude electric pulse such that the material reaches only the crystallization point and given time to crystallize allowing phase change from amorphous to crystalline is known as SET current.

The early devices were slow, power consuming and broke down easily due to the large currents. Therefore, it did not succeed as SRAM and flash memory took over. In the 1980s though, the discovery of germanium-antimony-tellurium (GeSbTe) meant that phase-change memory now needed less time and power to function. This resulted in the success of the rewriteable optical disk and created renewed interest in the phase-change memory. The advances in lithography also meant that previously excessive programming current has now become much smaller as the volume of GeSbTe that changes phase is reduced.

Phase-change memory has many near ideal memory qualities such as

(MRAM) is the unique scaling advantage of having better performance with smaller sizes. The limit to which phase-change memory can be scaled is hence limited by lithography at least until 45 nm. Thus, it offers the biggest potential of achieving ultra-high memory density cells that can be commercialized.

Though phase-change memory offers much promise, there are still certain technical problems that need to be solved before it can reach ultra-high density and commercialized. The most important challenge for phase-change memory is to reduce the programming current to the level that is compatible with the minimum MOS transistor drive current for high-density integration. Currently, the programming current in phase-change memory is substantially high. This high current limits the memory density of the phase-change memory cells as the current supplied by the transistor is not sufficient due to their high current requirement. Hence, the unique scaling advantage of phase-change memory cannot be fully utilized.

The typical phase-change memory device design is shown. It has layers including the top electrode, GST, the GeSbTe layer, BEC, the bottom electrode and the dielectric layers. The programmable volume is the GeSbTe volume that is in contact with the bottom electrode. This is the part that can be scaled down with lithography. The thermal time constant of the device is also important. The thermal time constant must be fast enough for GeSbTe to cool rapidly into the amorphous state during RESET but slow enough to allow crystallization to occur during SET state. The thermal time constant depends on the design and material the cell is built. To read, a low current pulse is applied to the device. A small current ensures the material does not heat up. Information stored is read out by measuring the resistance of the device.

Threshold switching

Threshold switching occurs when GeSbTe goes from a high

Nano-timescale phase change

Recently, much research has focused on the material analysis of the phase-change material in an attempt to explain the high speed phase change of GeSbTe. Using

are intact and only the weaker bonds are broken.

Using the most possible crystalline and amorphous local structures for GeSbTe, the fact that

Nucleation-domination versus growth-domination

Another similar material is AgInSbTe. It offers higher linear density, but has lower overwrite cycles by 1-2 orders of magnitude. It is used in groove-only recording formats, often in rewritable CDs. AgInSbTe is known as a growth-dominated material while GeSbTe is known as a nucleation-dominated material. In GeSbTe, the nucleation process of crystallization is long with many small crystalline nuclei being formed before a short growth process where the numerous small crystals are joined together. In AgInSbTe, there are only a few nuclei formed in the nucleation stage and these nuclei grow bigger in the longer growth stage such that they eventually form one crystal.^[13]

References