Conditioning phase change memory cells

摘要

A method for conditioning at least one Phase Change Memory, PCM, cell. The PCM cell is characterized by a number of pre-defined characteristics or properties. For pre-conditioning, at least one conditioning pulse is applied to the PCM such that at least one selected characteristic of the number of pre-defined characteristics is changed to a desired value.

主权项

1. A method for conditioning at least one Phase Change Memory (PCM) cell having a number of pre-defined characteristics, the method comprising:
selecting a desired behavior from a set of pre-determined behaviours, wherein the set of pre-determined behaviours includes DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) behaviour, including fast read/write and high reliability, and multi-level cell storage behaviour, including low cost per bit; selecting at least one characteristic which is to be changed from the number of pre-defined characteristics, wherein the number of pre-defined characteristics includes a certain resistance margin between a lowest and a highest resistance value of the PCM cell, a certain programming speed being defined as a duration of the programming pulse necessary to bring the PCM cell to a definite low-resistance state, and a certain programming power being defined as the power of the programming pulse necessary to bring the cell to a definite high-resistance state; selecting at least one conditioning pulse for changing the selected characteristic to a desired value for the desired behaviour; and applying the selected conditioning pulse to the PCM cell such that the selected characteristic is changed to the desired value.