TY - GEN
T1 - Memory module-level testing and error behaviors for phase change memory
AU - Zhang, Zhe
AU - Xiao, Weijun
AU - Park, Nohhyun
AU - Lilja, David J
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Phase change memory (PCM) is a promising technology to solve energy and performance bottlenecks for memory and storage systems. To help understand the reliability characteristics of PCM devices, we present a simple fault model to categorize four types of PCM errors. Based on our proposed fault model, we conduct extensive experiments on real PCM devices at the memory module level. Numerical results uncover many interesting trends in terms of the lifetime of PCM devices and error behaviors. Specifically, PCM lifetime for the memory chips we tested is greater than 14 million cycles, which is much longer than for flash memory devices. In addition, the distributions for four types of errors are quite different. These results can be used for estimating PCM lifetime and for measuring the fabrication quality of individual PCM memory chips.
AB - Phase change memory (PCM) is a promising technology to solve energy and performance bottlenecks for memory and storage systems. To help understand the reliability characteristics of PCM devices, we present a simple fault model to categorize four types of PCM errors. Based on our proposed fault model, we conduct extensive experiments on real PCM devices at the memory module level. Numerical results uncover many interesting trends in terms of the lifetime of PCM devices and error behaviors. Specifically, PCM lifetime for the memory chips we tested is greater than 14 million cycles, which is much longer than for flash memory devices. In addition, the distributions for four types of errors are quite different. These results can be used for estimating PCM lifetime and for measuring the fabrication quality of individual PCM memory chips.
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U2 - 10.1109/ICCD.2012.6378664
DO - 10.1109/ICCD.2012.6378664
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84872059595
SN - 9781467330503
T3 - Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Computer Design: VLSI in Computers and Processors
SP - 358
EP - 363
BT - 2012 IEEE 30th International Conference on Computer Design, ICCD 2012
T2 - 2012 IEEE 30th International Conference on Computer Design, ICCD 2012
Y2 - 30 September 2012 through 3 October 2012
ER -