Ferroelectric HfO2 and Its Impact on the Memory Landscape

Since the discovery of ferroelectricity in hafnium oxide, many development activities have been started worldwide to elaborate on its suitability for memory applications. This work summarizes and suggests ferroelectric hafnium oxide-based (FE-HfO₂) memory technologies that could serve as a replacement for or addition to numerous spaces in the existing memory hierarchy. We discuss the use of ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFET) for Cache memory up to its utilization as mass storage memory cell. The current shortcomings of the existing memory technologies are highlighted and the challenges for memory concepts based on FE-HfO₂ are discussed. In total, the work illustrates that due to the fact that HfO₂ has been established as the de facto standard high-k material in industry, the discovered ferroelectric properties in that same material might impact the existing memory landscape as a whole.