Evaluation of Truly Passive Crossbar Memory Arrays on Short Flow Characterization Vehicle Test Chips

Abstract

More and more non volatile memory bit cell candidates are emerging which can be implemented between two metal layers in the BEOL process. Thus, short flow Characterization Vehicle® (CV®) Test Chips become beneficial for fast yield and endurance learning cycles. However, providing high observability of tail bits with ppm resolution requires access to more than just one bit cell per pad to be economically viable. Since, there are no FEOL switches available to address the bit cells we are evaluating truly Passive Crossbar Memory Arrays (PCMA) to significantly improve the bit per area ratio. Experimental results confirm successful memory operation based on fast parallel pulse testing. Design guidelines are presented to balance array size, signal to noise ratio, and test time.