Relaxation-Aware Programming in RRAM: Evaluating and Optimizing Write Termination

Resistive random access memory (RRAM) is a promising non-volatile memory technology, but relaxation effects cause conductance drift, impacting memory stability. This work investigates the impact of write termination (WT) on relaxation, showing that WT increases drift, especially at lower SET voltages, despite its energy efficiency benefits. To mitigate this, we propose to finely combine an overdrive voltage during SET operation. This technique consists of an increase on SET programming voltage by 0.2 Arbitrary Unit (AU), and results in conductance variability reduction, while maintaining WT’s power efficiency. Experimental results confirm that SET-overdriven WT achieves a memory window comparable to constant-duration SET, making WT robust to relaxation.