Fault model and test procedure for phase change memory

Chalcogenide based Phase change memory is one type of non-volatile memory that is most likely will replace the currently wide spread flash memory. Current research on Phase Change Memory targets the integration feasibility, as well as the reliability of such memory technology into the currently used CMOS process. Such studies identified special failure modes, known as disturbs, as well as other Phase Change memory specific faults. In this paper, we identify these failures, analyze their behaviors, and develop fault primitives/models that describes these faults accurately and effectively. In addition, we propose an efficient test algorithm, called March-PCM, to test for these faults and compare its performance to some previously developed test algorithms.