A thermodynamic theory of filamentary resistive switching

Abstract

We present a phenomenological theory of filamentary resistive random access memory (RRAM) describing the commonly observed features of their current-voltage characteristics. Our approach follows the approach of thermodynamic theory developed earlier for chalcogenide memory and threshold switches and largely independent of their microscopic details. It explains, without adjustable parameters, such features as the domains of filament formation and switching, voltage independent current in SET and current independent voltage in RESET regimes, the relation between the set and reset voltages, filament resistance independent of its length, etc. Furthermore, it expresses the observed features through the material and circuitry parameters thus paving a way to device improvements.