Phase change random access memory, thermal analysis

Despite very encouraging progress in recent years, phase change random access memory (Ovonic Unified Memory, OUM) still faces several problems, such as reliability (lifetime), power consumption and speed, which need to be resolved before it can be commercialized. There have been a number of attempts to address such problems, even through devising other alternatives such as line memory and thermal GST memory cells. However, a comprehensive thermal engineering of the OUM memory cell is missing from the literature, and yet can have a great impact on design and optimization of the device. Such an analysis can definitely serve the OUM technology to achieve the optimum design and can even be used as a guideline for defining the research path. This manuscript provides an insight into the thermal issues and phenomena in the phase change random access memory cell. I-structure is proposed for OUM which has the combined features of T-structure and the line memory cell.