Back-end-of-line integrated 1 × 1 μm 2 TiN/HfO2 / Ti/TiN MIM memory devices in a 0.25-μm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor technology were built to investigate the conduction mechanism and the resistive switching behavior as a function of temperature. The temperature-dependent I–V characteristics in fresh devices are attributed to the Poole–Frenkel mechanism with an extracted trap energy level at φ ≈ 0.2 eV below the HfO2 conduction band. The trap level is associated with positively charged oxygen vacancies. The electroformed memory cells show a stable bipolar switching behavior in the temperature range from 213–413 K. The OFF-state current increases with temperature, whereas the ON-state current can be described by a weak metallic behavior. Furthermore, the results suggest that the I–V cycling not only induces significant changes in the electrical properties of the MIM memory devices, i.e., the increase in the OFF-state current, but also stronger temperature dependence. The temperature effect on the ON-state and OFF-state characteristics is modeled within the framework of the quantum point-contact model for dielectric breakdown using an effective temperature-dependent confinement potential. Index Terms—Conduction process in virgin TiN/HfO2 /Ti/TiN memory cells, resistance-change random access memory (RRAM), temperature dependence of the OFF-state and the ON-state.