Physical insights on imprint and application to functional memory with ferroelectric materials

This paper has described a new concept on imprint phenomenon and an applica tion of ferroelectric capacitor devices to new LSI architecture. The reduct ion in only opposite remanent polarization of poled side is observed experi mentally. It is possible to explain the phenomenon using a pinning model. T he thermionic field emission model also supports the pinning model. The fea tures of new cell are minimum cell area with three elements including ferro electric capacitor similar to DRAM and simple peripheral circuits without r efresh circuits different from DRAM. Test chip for functional memory with a dd operation as an internal logic is designed and fabricated. The functiona l operation is verified experimentally by observation of output waveform af ter internal calculation. The results are positively a technical evidence f or feasibility of ferroelectric functional memory.