Patent ID: 9373382
Filing Date: 2016-06-21
CPC Classification: G11C,H01L

Claim Text:
1. A method for healing a phase-change memory device, comprising: providing at least one memory cell comprising a phase-change material with a shifted current-resistance characteristic function (shifted I-R function), wherein the process for providing the memory cell comprises steps of: making the phase-change material of the memory cell having an initial I-R function (initial I-R function); and performing a set operation, a reset operation or the combination thereof to apply a stress current to the memory cell, so as to transform the initial I-R function to the shifted I-R function; and applying a healing stress to the phase-change material to transform the shifted I-R function into the initial I-R function, wherein the shifted I-R function is a translation function of the initial I-R function, wherein the process of applying the healing stress to the phase-change material comprises steps of applying a healing current to the phase-change material, and the healing current substantially ranges from ½ of the upper limit value of the stress current to ⅕ of the lower limit value of the stress current.