We here report a joint experimental and theoretical analysis of polarization switching in ferroelectric tunnel junctions. Our results show that the injection and trapping of charge into the ferroelectric-dielectric stack has a large influence on the polarization switching. Our results are relevant to the physical understanding and to the design of the devices, and for both memory and memristor applications.

Ferroelectric tunneling junctions (FTJ) are considered to be the intrinsically most energy efficient memristors. In this work, specific electrical features of ferroelectric hafnium-zirconium oxide based FTJ devices are investigated. Moreover, the impact on the design of FTJ-based circuits for edge computing applications is discussed by means of two example circuits.

16kbit 1T-1C FeRAM arrays are demonstrated at 130nm node with TiN/HfO2:Si/TiN ferroelectric capacitors integrated in the Back-End-of-Line (BEOL). Zero bit failure is reported at the array level, with memory window fully open down to 2.5V programming voltage, capacitor area down to 0.16µm² and switching speed down to 4ns. Promising endurance is reported at the array level up to 10 7 cycles. For the first time, solder reflow compatibility is demonstrated for HfO2-based FeRAM. These results pave the way to competitive ultra-low power embedded non-volatile memories at more advanced nodes.