%0 Electronic Article %A Ying Li %+ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-system and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China %A Zhitang Song %+ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-system and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China %A Bo Liu %+ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-system and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China %A Guanping Wu %+ United Lab, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Shanghai 201203, People's Republic of China %A Songlin Feng %+ State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Micro-system and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China %K Ge2Sb2Te5 %K GST %K small bottom electrode contact %K homogeneous resistance distribution %K chemical mechanical polisher process %K switching operation %K CMP process %K BEC size formation %K phase change material %K contact resistance %K BEC nanoscale W plug structure %K failure modes %K phase change random access memory %K corrosion %K ultra-smooth surface %X To reduce the reset current for developing reliable high-density phase change random access memory, small bottom electrode contact (BEC) size formation is a critical process. One of the failure modes for the process is the corrosion of the tungsten (W) plug, which is caused by the W chemical mechanical polisher (CMP) process. An ultra-smooth surface of BEC nanoscale W plug structure was successfully fabricated by the CMP process, which reduced the W/phase change material (Ge2Sb2Te5, GST) contact resistance, and gained more homogeneous resistance distribution. Thus, the stability of the device was improved greatly by the acidic buff CMP process compared with that of the device with alkali buff owing to the reduction of W/GST connect resistance fluctuation. %@ 0013-5194 %T Switching operation improvement of phase change memory with nanoscale W plug structure by CMP process %B Electronics Letters %D June 2013 %V 49 %N 12 %P 747-749 %I Institution of Engineering and Technology %U https://digital-library.theiet.org/;jsessionid=34922c8je33tl.x-iet-live-01content/journals/10.1049/el.2013.0985 %G EN