Analytical model of graphene-enabled ultra-low power phase change memory

Abstract

A simple analytical model is presented, which predicts the energy required for a reset operation in a phase change memory (PCM) device with a graphene monolayer between a bottom metallic electrode (BEC) and Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) chalcogenide layer. The graphene effectively adds thermal boundary resistance between the GST and metal electrode, limiting the parasitic loss of heat into the electrode. Additionally, the model considers the effects of electrode size and Peltier heating, both to the steady state and transient performance. The graphene monolayer reduces the reset energy by a factor of between 2 and 10 over the direct electrode-GST interface, the Peltier effect reduces the reset energy by a factor of approximately 4, and scaling the size of the electrode results in better than exponential energy reduction.