Reliability aspects of ferroelectric hafnium oxide for application in non-volatile memories

Ferroelectricity in hafnium oxide can solve the scaling issues associated with integrating perovskite based ferroelectric into CMOS processes. With the advent of this new ferroelectric material, basic reliability challenges associated with retention, imprint, fatigue and disturbs in the memory array need to be reexamined. In particular, the high coercive field of ferroelectric hafnium oxide is a double-edged property that helps to enable scaled FeFET devices on the one hand, but also makes the optimization of imprint and field cycling endurance a difficult task. The reliability optimization needs to be specific for the concrete memory concept FeRAM, FeFET or FTJ. This paper summarizes the specific issues for each concept and discusses the current status.