Analysis of Cell Variability Impact on a 3-D Vertical RRAM (VRRAM) Crossbar Array Using a Modified Lumping Method

In this paper, the read margin (RM) and write power (WP) of 3-D vertical resistive random access memory (VRRAM) are analyzed by considering the variation in RRAM cell (self-rectifying cell) characteristics. To demonstrate the cell variation effect on a large 3-D VRRAM array, we develop a modified lumping method in HSPICE simulator and show that this method substantially reduces the computation time while maintaining high accuracy. Read and write performances including cell variation are investigated according to various array sizes and RRAM characteristics. A large distribution of cell current reduces the RM but hardly affects the WP. Moreover, in 3-D VRRAM with a small number of wordline (WL) layers, a large on/off ratio (R_HRS/R_LRS) is advantageous for improving the RM and reducing the variation effect. In contrast, a large on/off ratio has little effect on the RM in 3-D VRRAM with many WL layers. This difference occurs because the increased leakage induced in the half-selected cells mainly affects the RM, and the half-selected cells are located in the selected vertical pillar in 3-D VRRAM.