A new thin-film, cross-point non-volatile memory using threshold switching properties of phase-change chalcogenide

A new cross-point, nonvolatile, phase-change memory is investigated. This new memory exploits the properties of the newly discovered controllable threshold voltage for chalcogenide material (Chen et al., 2003). Using this unique property, the device is itself both an access element and a memory element and no access transistor is needed in the memory cell. Very fast programming and reading speed are demonstrated. This simple memory is also non-volatile, random accessible, and highly scalable. The cell size is only 4F/sup 2/.