Abstract
Nonvolatile memories have emerged in recent years and have become a leading candidate towards replacing dynamic and static random-access memory devices. In this article, the performances of TiO2 and TaO2 nonvolatile memristive devices were compared and the factors that make TaO2 memristive devices better than TiO2 memristive devices were studied. TaO2 memristive devices have shown better endurance performances (108 times more switching cycles) and faster switching speed (5 times) than TiO2 memristive devices. Electroforming of TaO2 memristive devices requires ∼4.5 times less energy than TiO2 memristive devices of a similar size. The retention period of TaO2 memristive devices is expected to exceed 10 years with sufficient experimental evidence. In addition to comparing device performances, this article also explains the differences in physical device structure, switching mechanism, and resistance switching performances of TiO2 and TaO2 memristive devices. This article summarizes the reasons that give TaO2 memristive devices the advantage over TiO2 memristive devices, in terms of electroformation, switching speed, and endurance.