Investigation on Phase-change Synapse Devices for More Gradual Switching

Abstract

The architecture of phase-change synapses that can have more intermediate states was studied by means of TCAD simulation. After thorough investigation on the cell geometry effects, it was found that the line-and-space type architecture yields more intermediate states but consumes more power than the confined architecture does. In fact, phase-change memory has evolved from the former to the latter to achieve better power efficiency and more abrupt transition. This trade-off between the cell architectures must be overcome to make a synapse with both less power and gradual transition.