A technology agnostic RRAM characterisation methodology protocol

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive, technology-agnostic methodology for characterising RRAM devices, enabling fair benchmarking and deeper understanding of device physics across various memristor technologies.

Contribution

It presents a complete, adaptable protocol for RRAM characterisation that covers physical mechanisms and performance metrics, facilitating fair comparison and innovation.

Findings

Provides a standardised testing framework for RRAM devices

Enables detailed physical and performance analysis

Supports development of accurate device models

Abstract

The emergence of memristor technologies brings new prospects for modern electronics via enabling novel in-memory computing solutions and affordable and scalable reconfigurable hardware implementations. Several competing memristor technologies have been presented with each bearing distinct performance metrics across multi-bit memory capacity, low-power operation, endurance, retention and stability. Application needs however are constantly driving the push towards higher performance, which necessitates the introduction of standard characterisation protocols for fair benchmarking. At the same time, opportunities for innovation are missed by focusing on excessively narrow performance aspects. To that end our work presents a complete, technology agnostic, characterisation methodology based on established techniques that are adapted to memristors/RRAM characterisation needs. Our approach is designed to extract information on all aspects of device behaviour, ranging from deciphering underlying physical mechanisms to benchmarking across a variety of electrical performance metrics that can in turn support the generation of device models.