Abstract
The memory performance of hafnium oxide (HfO <sub>x</sub> )-based resistive memory containing a thin reactive Ti buffer layer can be greatly improved. Due to the excellent ability of Ti to absorb oxygen atoms from the HfOx film after post-metal annealing, a large amount of oxygen vacancies are left in theHfO <sub>x</sub> layer of the TiN/Ti/HfO <sub>x</sub> /TiN stacked layer. These oxygen vacancies are crucial to make a memory device with a stable bipolar resistive switching behavior. Aside from the benefits of low operation power and large on/off ratio (> 100), this memory also exhibits reliable switching endurance (≥ 10 <sup>6</sup> cycles), robust resistance states (200 °C), high device yield (∼100%), and fast switching speed (< 10 ns). © 2006 IEEE.