Enhancing RRAM Reliability: Exploring the Effects of Al Doping on HfO2-Based Devices

This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of RRAM devices based on HfO2 and Al-doped HfO2 insulators, focusing on critical performance metrics, including Forming yield, Post-Programming Stability (PPS), Fast Drift, Endurance, and Retention at elevated temperatures ( 125 ◦ C). Aluminum doping significantly enhances device reliability and stability, improving Forming yield, reducing current drift during programming and Retention tests, and minimizing variability during Endurance cycling. While Al5%:HfO2 achieves most of the observed benefits compared to pure HfO2, Al7%:HfO2 offers incremental advantages for scenarios requiring extreme reliability. These findings position Al-doped HfO2 devices as a promising solution for RRAM-based systems in memory and neuromorphic computing, highlighting the potential trade-off between performance gains and increased fabrication complexity. This work underlines the importance of material engineering for optimizing RRAM devices in application-specific contexts.