This book provides comprehensive coverage of the materials
characteristics, process technologies, and device operations for memory
field-effect transistors employing inorganic or organic ferroelectric
thin films. This transistor-type ferroelectric memory has interesting
fundamental device physics and potentially large industrial impact.
Among various applications of ferroelectric thin films, the development
of nonvolatile ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) has been most
actively progressed since the late 1980s and reached modest mass
production for specific application since 1995. There are two types of
memory cells in ferroelectric nonvolatile memories. One is the
capacitor-type FeRAM and the other is the field-effect transistor
(FET)-type FeRAM. Although the FET-type FeRAM claims the ultimate
scalability and nondestructive readout characteristics, the
capacitor-type FeRAMs have been the main interest for the major
semiconductor memory companies, because the ferroelectric FET has fatal
handicaps of cross-talk for random accessibility and short retention
time.
This book aims to provide the readers with development history,
technical issues, fabrication methodologies, and promising applications
of FET-type ferroelectric memory devices, presenting a comprehensive
review of past, present, and future technologies. The topics discussed
will lead to further advances in large-area electronics implemented on
glass, plastic or paper substrates as well as in conventional Si
electronics.
The book is composed of chapters written by leading researchers in
ferroelectric materials and related device technologies, including oxide
and organic ferroelectric thin films.
