THE USE OF VOLTAGE TO ACCELERATE THE ENDURANCE DEGRADATION OF PZT CAPACITORS

A voltage vs. endurance model was created to predict the performance o f PZT from 3 to 8 volts. Capacitors that are part of the street struct ure on finished wafer products were cycled from 10 to a total of le12 cycles. The switched charge was measured over 10 to 12 orders of magni tude in order to develop models to predict performance out to le15 cyc les. The switched charge was found to degrade as a square function of the log of the number of cycles fatigued. The model was found to fit t he data with an r(2) greater than .95. Utilizing the minimum allowable charge for a sense amplifier, this model could be used to predict par t life over operating voltages.