Phase Change Memory (PCM) is the most mature among back-end emerging non-volatile memory concepts. In order to enable embedded PCM applications, the thermal properties of the chalcogenide material have to be boosted, by optimizing its stoichiometry. Ge enrichment of Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 (GST) has been proved to be promising for improving the thermal stability of the technology, but also demonstrates an increase of the low-resistance state (LRS) resistivity as well as a larger resistance drift of this state towards higher resistance over time. This phenomenon can be minimized if an appropriate programming voltage pulse is applied, capable of providing a linearly decreasing temperature profile in the active region of the memory device. In this paper, we discuss the LRS resistance increase of PCM cells based on Ge-rich GST and present a programming voltage profile …