Low Voltage and High Speed 1Xnm 1T1C FE-RAM with Ultra-Thin 5nm HZO

Sung, Minchul; Rho, Kwangmyoung; Kim, Ja-Yong; Cheon, Jun-Ho; Choi, Ki‐Young; Kim, Do-Hee; Em, Hoseok; Park, Gyeongcheol; Woo, Jungwook; Lee, Yeongyu; Ko, Jae‐Hyeon; Kim, Moonhoi; Lee, Gwangyeob; Ryu, Soojung; Sheen, Dong Sun; Joo, Yangsung; Kim, Seiyon; Cho, Chang Hyun; Na, Myung-Hee; Kim, Jinkook

doi:10.1109/iedm19574.2021.9720545

Cited by 17 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Since ferroelectricity was discovered in HfO 2 -based material, high-capacity and high-density are also expected in ferroelectric memory devices [1,2]. In fact, there have been manufacturing-level demonstrations of scaled ferroelectric memory devices, including 1-transistor-1-Capacitor FeRAM [3,4], 1-transistor FeFET [5,6] and 1-resistance FTJ devices [7] using HfO 2 -based ferroelectric. For development toward highvolume manufacturing, understanding and engineering the material property is indispensable to realized highperformance and high-reliability ferroelectric memory devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mesoscopic-scale grain formation in HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films and its impact on electrical characteristics

Kobayashi

Wu²,

Sawabe³

et al. 2022

Nano Convergence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ferroelectric memory devices are expected for low-power and high-speed memory applications. HfO2-based ferroelectric is attracting attention for its CMOS-compatibility and high scalability. Mesoscopic-scale grains, of which size is almost comparable to device size, are formed in HfO2-based ferroelectric poly-crystalline thin films, which largely influences electrical characteristics in memory devices. It is important to study the impact of mesoscopic-scale grain formation on the electrical characteristics. In this work, first, we have studied the thickness dependence of the polarization switching kinetics in HfO2-based ferroelectric. While static low-frequency polarization is comparable for different thickness, dynamic polarization switching speed is slower in thin Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) capacitors. Based on the analysis using the NLS model and physical characterization, thinner HZO contains smaller grains with orientation non-uniformity and more grain boundaries than thicker HZO, which can impede macroscopic polarization switching. We have also theoretically and experimentally studied the polar-axis alignment of a HfO2-based ferroelectric thin film. While in-plane polar orientation is stable in as-grown HZO, out-of-plane polarization can be dominant by applying electric field, which indicates the transition from in-plane polar to out-of-plane polar orientation in the ferroelectric phase grains. This is confirmed by calculating kinetic pathway using ab-initio calculation.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mesoscopic-scale grain formation in HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films and its impact on electrical characteristics

Kobayashi

Wu²,

Sawabe³

et al. 2022

Nano Convergence

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, the need for a sufficiently large capacitor together with the limited thin-film manufacturability of the perovskite materials restricted their use to niche applications. [4] Thanks to its CMOS manufacturing compatibility the ferroelectric HfO 2 paved the way for the integration of scalable 3D ferroelectric capacitors [86,87] and thus revived also the interest in the research on FeRAM scaling. First very encouraging results have been recently demonstrated.…”

Section: Ferroelectric Capacitor and 1t-1c Ferammentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First encouraging results of an 8 Gb 3D FeRAM featuring a 5 nm HZO layer have been presented recently. [ 87 ] In order to attain sufficient read margin between the two states and in view of a certain device‐to device variability and some design constraints the reported capacitor area is in the range of 0.2–0.4 µm. Fast write operation in the range of some ns at write voltages of 2–4 V have been shown.…”

Section: Ferroelectric Devices and Their Application In Memoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Ferroelectric Material Optimization to Neuromorphic Devices

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Due to the voltage driven switching at low voltages combined with nonvolatility of the achieved polarization state, ferroelectric materials have a unique potential for low power nonvolatile electronic devices. The competitivity of such devices is hindered by compatibility issues of well‐known ferroelectrics with established semiconductor technology. The discovery of ferroelectricity in hafnium oxide changed this situation. The natural application of nonvolatile devices is as a memory cell. Nonvolatile memory devices also built the basis for other applications like in‐memory or neuromorphic computing. Three different basic ferroelectric devices can be constructed: ferroelectric capacitors, ferroelectric field effect transistors and ferroelectric tunneling junctions. In this article first the material science of the ferroelectricity in hafnium oxide will be summarized with a special focus on tailoring the switching characteristics towards different applications.The current status of nonvolatile ferroelectric memories then lays the ground for looking into applications like in‐memory computing. Finally, a special focus will be given to showcase how the basic building blocks of spiking neural networks, the neuron and the synapse, can be realized and how they can be combined to realize neuromorphic computing systems. A summary, comparison with other technologies like resistive switching devices and an outlook completes the paper.

show abstract

“…The operating voltage (high E op t FE ) and breakdown issues (high E op /E BD ) can be addressed either by reducing the operating field E op − or by scaling down the film thickness t FE . ,− As discussed in this work, even though it is possible to reduce the operating field E op to less than 2 E c for one-shot operations, it tends to suffer from reliability issues such as endurance and retention in the long run. Conversely, scaling the thickness t FE to less than the standard thickness of 10 nm helps decrease the operating voltage without having to operate in an electric field that is excessively low. , Moreover, there have been reports addressing the improvement in breakdown tolerance in thin HZO films. , Therefore, film thickness scaling is expected to be a key approach to simultaneously reduce the operating voltage and improve the endurance toward the realization of BEOL-embedded FeRAM in advanced silicon technology nodes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low Operating Voltage, Improved Breakdown Tolerance, and High Endurance in Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ Ferroelectric Capacitors Achieved by Thickness Scaling Down to 4 nm for Embedded Ferroelectric Memory

Toprasertpong

Tahara

Hikosaka

et al. 2022

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The comparatively high coercive field in Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) and other HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films leads to two critical challenges for their application in embedded ferroelectric memory: high operating voltage due to a large thickness-field product and poor endurance due to the high operating field close to the breakdown field. In this study, we demonstrate that the thickness scaling of ferroelectric HZO down to 4 nm is a promising approach to overcome these challenges. As the coercive voltage scales down almost linearly with the film thickness, the operating voltage of 4 nm HZO is reduced to 0.6 V for one-shot operation and 1.2 V for stable memory operation, which is in the voltage range compatible with scaled silicon technologies. Furthermore, it is found that the breakdown field is substantially improved in thinner HZO since the breakdown mechanism is dominated by the stress voltage, not the stress field, resulting in improved cycle-to-breakdown by more than 4 orders of magnitude when thinning from 9.5 to 4 nm. We identify two concerns accompanying thickness scaling: the increase in crystallization temperature and the pinched hysteresis behavior, which can be addressed by carefully preparing temperature-thickness mapping and applying strong-field wake-up cycling, respectively. Our optimal 4 nm-thick HZO ferroelectric capacitor exhibits an operating voltage of 1.2 V with over 10 year data retention and 1012 endurance cycles at 100 kHz, which can be further improved to more than 1014 with a smaller capacitor size and higher operating frequency.

show abstract

Low Voltage and High Speed 1Xnm 1T1C FE-RAM with Ultra-Thin 5nm HZO

Cited by 17 publications

References 5 publications

Mesoscopic-scale grain formation in HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films and its impact on electrical characteristics

Mesoscopic-scale grain formation in HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films and its impact on electrical characteristics

From Ferroelectric Material Optimization to Neuromorphic Devices

Low Operating Voltage, Improved Breakdown Tolerance, and High Endurance in Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ Ferroelectric Capacitors Achieved by Thickness Scaling Down to 4 nm for Embedded Ferroelectric Memory

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Low Voltage and High Speed 1Xnm 1T1C FE-RAM with Ultra-Thin 5nm HZO

Cited by 17 publications

References 5 publications

Mesoscopic-scale grain formation in HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films and its impact on electrical characteristics

Mesoscopic-scale grain formation in HfO2-based ferroelectric thin films and its impact on electrical characteristics

From Ferroelectric Material Optimization to Neuromorphic Devices

Low Operating Voltage, Improved Breakdown Tolerance, and High Endurance in Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 Ferroelectric Capacitors Achieved by Thickness Scaling Down to 4 nm for Embedded Ferroelectric Memory

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Low Operating Voltage, Improved Breakdown Tolerance, and High Endurance in Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ Ferroelectric Capacitors Achieved by Thickness Scaling Down to 4 nm for Embedded Ferroelectric Memory