Ra. Moore et Jm. Benedetto, IONIZING RADIATION-INDUCED ASYMMETRIES OF THE RETENTION CHARACTERISTICS OF FERROELECTRIC THIN-FILMS, IEEE transactions on nuclear science, 42(6), 1995, pp. 1575-1584
A new failure mode in ferroelectric, non-volatile memories in a radiat
ion environment has been identified. Exposure to ionizing radiation in
combination with a series of unipolar pulses, which could be found in
a read-only or read-mostly memory application, has been found to crea
te a preferred memory state in the ferroelectric storage cell. This pr
eferred memory state, or imprint, causes a significant asymmetry in th
e retention of polarization. While ferroelectric materials remain high
ly radiation tolerant, a new, more stringent testing method should be
adopted for hardness assurance. The creation of a preferential memory
state, or 'imprint,' in ferroelectric films and memories has previousl
y only been reported in elevated temperature situations.