Engineering of ZrO₂-based RRAM devices for low power in-memory computing

This work evaluates the impact of applying hydrogen plasma (H-plasma) either after the deposition of the ZrO₂ layer or as an intermediate step during the deposition on the performance of resistive random-access memory devices. Devices treated with H-plasma exhibited lower power consumption during the forming process and a higher R_on/R_off ratio over 50 cycles of SET and RESET pulses compared to untreated devices. The position of the plasma treatment significantly influenced the device's performance. We measured the leakage current, which correlates well with the forming process. Devices with higher leakage current required less power during the forming process. It was observed that a thicker capping layer following plasma insertion reduced forming power and improved the conductance quantization for multilevel cell characteristics.