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ArC Instruments ArC ONE Control User Manual

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Memristor Characterisation Platform
User Manual
rev. 1.3
® ArC Instruments Ltd., 2017

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Summary of Contents for ArC Instruments ArC ONE Control

  • Page 1 Memristor Characterisation Platform User Manual rev. 1.3 ® ArC Instruments Ltd., 2017...

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    3.4. Device Selection Custom Arrays Read Operation Manual Write Pulsing Data Display Device History Saving Data Advanced Pulsing Modules 3.5. FormFinder CurveTracer SwitchSeeker Endurance Retention VolatilityRead STDP SuperMode 3.6. Example Use Cases Troubleshooting Connection Issues 5.1. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 3: Introduction

    And while this instrument provides unrivalled versatility in testing, it does so without compromising on performance; delivering ns pulsing and other bespoke state-of-art capabilities that are essential for characterising advanced memory devices. This guide covers the installation of this apparatus and details its capabilities. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 4: Getting Started

    ) and a dedicated ® ® software graphical user interface – GUI (ArC ONE Control ® The hardware and adjacent components straight out of the box are illustrated below Figure 1: Out of the box: ArC ONE® hardware instrumentation board. Mini USB cable. AC adaptor.
  • Page 5 Figure 2: PLCC68 and surrounding headers pin map ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 6: Software Installation And Update

    Go to: developer.mbed.org/handbook/Windows-serial-configuration Follow steps 1 and 2 to install the drivers. You’re good to go. Double click on ArC ONE Control.exe in the ArC ONE Control folder to start the interface. Connect your PC to the board via the USB cable and plug in the provided DC adaptor.

  • Page 7: Using The Arc Gui

    File menu contains Save, Open, Clear and Exit options. Settings menu allows the user to modify hardware settings and choose a new working directory on the fly. Help menu shows the documentation (this file), and ArC Instruments Ltd. contact information. Manual Operations panel: Contains buttons for reading a single selected cell or the full array.
  • Page 8 FormFinder, SwitchSeeker, standard IV measurement protocols such as CurveTracer, and memristor specific characterisation pulsing scripts such as Endurance and Retention. The pulsing scripts are described in detail in Section 3.5. 3.2. Starting a New Session ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 9: Starting A New Session

    Array Shape counters set up the size of the array. Any size is selectable between 1 and 32 word- and bitlines. Press Start to start a new session with the selected settings. Cancel to abort. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.
  • Page 10 Figure 5: Live: Local session mode board Figure 6: Live: External BNC session Figure 7: Live: BNC to Local session connectivity. mode board connectivity. mode board connectivity. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 11: Connecting To Arc One

    If the port is not there, click Refresh and wait for up to 10 seconds. The port should now appear. Once the connection is successful, the connection status will turn green like below: If any connection problems occur, please refer to Section 5 of this manual. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 12: Basic Operations

    A box with a thick red outline will indicate the selected sub-array. Right click anywhere on Crossbar Panel to toggle the visibility of the box. Figure 8: Manual Operations Panel. Figure 9: Crossbar Panel showing device range selection. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 13: Custom Arrays

    Any device select, or device operation will be constrained to this set. The devices within the range selected by left clicking and dragging will constitute the target area for any operations carried out via the Apply to Range directive. Figure 12: Example of a custom array. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 14: Read Operation

    Select the reading voltage by left-clicking the up and down arrows in the reading voltage counter, or introducing a float number by hand. Remember to click Update Read every time the reading method, or reading voltage is changed. Figure 13: Manual Operations panel. Figure 14: ReadClassic schematic illustration. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 15: Manual Write Pulsing

    READ pulse. The resulting value of resistance measured during the respective READ pulse is shown in the corresponding pulse number data point in the top subplot. Figure 16: Example of a data plot showing evolution of resistance during an arbitrary manual pulsing session. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 16: Device History

    Descriptive tag providing extra information regarding the respective data point. ReadTag: RX: X represents the read type employed for the READ operation during the respective point measurement. ReadVoltage: represents the reading voltage employed for the READ operation during the respective measurement point. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.
  • Page 17 SS_i Intermediate point of a Same as above SwitchSeeker measurement SS_e End point of a SwitchSeeker Same as above measurement RET_s Start of a Retention READ voltage shown in measurement. ‘Amplitude’ field. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.
  • Page 18 5132.203 0.197452 CT_i_1 0.197452 4678.331 0.298781 CT_i_1 0.298781 4168.121 0.399095 CT_i_1 0.399095 3710.786 0.498812 CT_i_1 0.498812 3329.797 0.601575 CT_i_1 0.601575 3015.44 0.706225 CT_i_1 0.706225 2788.292 0.810664 CT_i_1 0.810664 2623.501 0.912557 CT_i_1 0.912557 2490.076 1.014837 CT_i_1 1.014837 ® ArC Instruments Ltd.
  • Page 19 2718.968 0.0001 FF_i 2716.181 0.75 0.0001 FF_i 2715.721 0.0001 FF_i 2713.022 1.25 0.0001 FF_i 2713.36 0.0001 FF_i 2776.728 1.75 0.0001 FF_i 4390.111 0.0001 FF_e 4414.533 S R2 V=0.3 4420.807 S R2 V=0.3 4421.931 S R2 V=0.3 ® ArC Instruments Ltd.
  • Page 20 0.0001 EN_i 3931.544 0.0001 EN_i 3140.177 0.0001 EN_i 4010.678 0.0001 EN_i 3161.425 0.0001 EN_i 4076.823 0.0001 EN_i 3209.966 0.0001 EN_e 3215.763 S R2 V=0.3 3215.978 S R2 V=0.3 3216.013 S R2 V=0.3 3215.842 S R2 V=0.3 ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 21: Advanced Pulsing Modules

    Apply to One: applies the algorithm to the currently selected device only. Apply to Range: applies the algorithm to the currently selected range of devices. Apply to All: applies the algorithm to all available devices in the array. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 22: Formfinder

    A standard pulsed voltage ramp, with one pulse per step can be achieved by setting Nr of pulses to 1, and making Pulse width min (us) Pulse width max (us) equal to the desired pulse width value. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 23: Curvetracer

    ‘CurveTracer’ entry will appear in the Device History panel. Double click it to visualize the IV measurement as shown in Fig. 22. Right click on the plots and select Export to save the figure, or corresponding data. Figure 22: CurveTracer results example. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 24: Switchseeker

    'slow and safe' method that ramps Figure 25: SwitchSeeker resistive switching results. voltage up more gradually. Experiment on a discrete resistor to explore the exact difference. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.
  • Page 25 A SwitchSeeker entry will appear in the Device History panel. Double click it to visualize the analogue resistive switching results. An example of a SwitchSeeker run result is illustrated in Figure 27. Right click on the plots and select Export to save the figure, or corresponding data. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 26: Endurance

    ON and OFF values. It is possible to set current cut-off values, independent for both half cycles (SET or RESET) by changing the corresponding parameters. A read pulse is applied after each programming pulse. Figure 29: Endurance options panel. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 27: Volatilityread

    Note: Regardless of stop condition chosen the volatility module will always obey the ‘stop time’ condition as a safety precaution. Note: When choosing a stopping condition from the drop-down menu the relevant stopping condition text fields are highlighted in red. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 28: Stdp

    When checked, only the STDP waveform shown in the top right figure is applied, one time, when clicking Apply to … . Use this feature to check how a single STDP event might influence the conductance of your device. Uncheck for normal operation like described above. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 29: Supermode

    Start Loop End Loop indicators for consistency before starting an experiment. You can Save and later Load measurement chains via the corresponding buttons. The Clear button will delete all entries from the chain column. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 30: Example Use Cases

    Scientific Reports, 6:10.1038, 2016. Automatically finding biasing parameters for analogue resistive switching [3] A. Serb, A. Khiat and T. Prodromakis, “An RRAM Biasing Parameter Optimizer”, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol 62, no 11, pp 3685-3691, Nov. 2015. ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

  • Page 31: Troubleshooting

    Restart the GUI (make sure you save any live data). In the case when the ArC GUI does not receive correct data from the ArC board, save your data, reset the mBED and restart the GUI. For any other queries, please contact us at: office@arc-instruments.co.uk ® ArC Instruments Ltd.

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