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®
ArC Instruments Ltd.
SwitchSeeker
SwitchSeeker is a state-of-art analogue resistive switching parameter finder. It automatically extracts
the pulse parameters which elicit repeatable analogue resistive switching. It achieves this by applying
increasingly invasive alternative polarity pulsed voltage ramps, until the resistance of the device exits a
programmable tolerance band. The algorithm consists of two stages: In stage I the system attempts to
detect the voltage polarity to which the device is most sensitive by applying a series of alternating
polarity pulses with progressively higher voltage. In stage II it applies a series of pulsed voltage ramps
in alternating polarities in order to switch the device. An illustration of the pulsing run is shown in
Figure 25, and an in depth explanation is provided in ref [3] in Section 4.
Reads in trailer card:
sets the number of reading
pulses before each pulse batch.
Programming pulses:
sets the number of identical
pulses in a pulse batch.
Pulse duration:
sets the constant pulse width;
Voltage min (V):
sets the start voltage of each
ramp;
Voltage step (V):
sets the voltage step per
consecutive batches in the same ramp.
Voltage max (V):
sets the voltage step per
consecutive batches in the same ramp.
Max switching cycles:
sets the number of
consecutive cycles the device is switched after the
analogue resistive switching parameters have
been found.
Tolerance band:
sets the tolerance band, as % of
the resistance value read before one ramp is
applied.
Interpulse time (ms):
sets the interpulse timing.
Resistance threshold (Ohms):
If no test device is
connected, or it is at extremely high resistive state
(well above 10MOhm) measurement noise can be
considerable and thus confuse the switchSeeker
algorithm. Set a maximum valid resistance
threshold to avoid this issue.
Seeker algorithm:
decides how to carry out stage I
of the algorithm. The options are a 'fast but
invasive' method that ramps up the voltage
quickly and a 'slow and safe' method that ramps
voltage up more gradually. Experiment on a
discrete resistor to explore the exact difference.
Figure 24: SwitchSeeker options panel.
Figure 25: SwitchSeeker resistive switching results.
Figure 23: Illustration of SwitchSeeker pulsing algorithm.