Electrical conduction and breakdown in sol-gel derived PZT thin films

Author

Moazzami, Reza ; Hu, Chenming ; Shepherd, William H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

1990

fDate

27-29 March 1990

Firstpage

231

Lastpage

236

Abstract

The viability of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films as a storage dielectric for DRAM applications is discussed. 4000 AA PZT films with an effective SiO/sub 2/ thickness less than 17 AA were prepared by sol-gel deposition. The films exhibited ohmic behavior at low fields and exponential field dependence at high fields. The conduction characteristics can be modeled accurately using expressions derived for ionic conductivity. At the same effective SiO/sub 2/ field, the leakage and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) characteristics are superior to other dielectric structures. However, lifetime extrapolations to worst-case operating conditions show that TDDB may be a very serious limitation for DRAM applications. Optimization of material properties of PZT films, especially the TDDB lifetime, is necessary for reliable DRAM operation.<>

Keywords

DRAM chips; electric breakdown of solids; electronic conduction in insulating thin films; ferroelectric storage; ferroelectric thin films; lead compounds; 4000 A; DRAM applications; PZT thin films; PbZrO3TiO3; TDDB; conduction characteristics; electric breakdown; electrical conduction; exponential field dependence; high fields; ionic conductivity; leakage; lifetime extrapolations; low fields; ohmic behavior; sol-gel deposition; storage dielectric; time-dependent dielectric breakdown; worst-case operating conditions; Capacitance-voltage characteristics; Capacitors; Dielectrics; Electric breakdown; Ferroelectric materials; Material storage; Polarization; Random access memory; Transistors; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Reliability Physics Symposium, 1990. 28th Annual Proceedings., International

Conference_Location

New Orleans, LA, USA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RELPHY.1990.66092

Filename

66092