Phase change memory structure and its manufacturing method

Abstract

The invention discloses a phase change memory structure and a manufacturing method thereof. The phase change memory structure includes an active element, a bottom electrode, a wall heater, a phase change layer, a top electrode and an insulating layer. The lower electrode is coupled to the active element, and the wall heater is in contact with the lower electrode. The wall heater has a side surface and a wall surface, the side surface extends along a first direction, and the wall surface extends along a second direction, and the first direction and the second direction intersect each other. A phase change layer is located on one side of the wall heater, the phase change layer has a side extending along the first direction, and the side of the wall heater contacts the side of the phase change layer. The upper electrode is located on the phase change layer, and the insulating layer covers the wall heater and the phase change layer. This method can fabricate wall heaters with extremely small feature sizes without complicated alignment mechanisms, and the contact area between the wall heaters and the phase change layer is small, so the reset current of the phase change memory very low.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to a phase-change memory structure and a manufacturing method thereof. Background technique [0002] Electronic products (such as mobile phones, tablet computers, and digital cameras) often have memory elements for storing data. It is known that memory devices can store information through storage nodes on the memory unit. Among them, the phase change memory utilizes the resistance state (such as high resistance value and low resistance value) of the memory element to store information. The memory device can have a material that can switch between different phases (eg, crystalline and amorphous). The different phase states make the memory cells have resistance states with different resistance values ​​for representing different values ​​of stored data. [0003] When the phase change memory cell is in operation, an electric current can be applied to increase the temperature of the memory element to change the phase state of the ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

It is known that the heater of the phase-change memory element has a large contact area with the memory element coupled to it, which will increase the defects of surface holes, and the speed of heating and cooling is also slow (the difference between high resistance and low resistance) The transition between them is not fast enough), and the relatively large amount of current required

However, the traditional technology requires a precise alignment mechanism in the manufacturing process of the heater with a small contact area, which will make the manufacturing process complicated and difficult to control, and relatively increase the cost of the phase change memory

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