A survey of behavioral modeling of ferroelectric capacitors

Six different behavioral models for ferroelectric capacitors are surveyed with an emphasis on their usefulness in the transient circuit simulation of integrated nonvolatile memories. These models can be broadly classified into two categories, namely, those that rely on the hysteresis loop and those that rely on the switching current of a ferroelectric capacitor. The former often involves a continuous cycling of a ferroelectric capacitor with a sinusoidal waveform. The latter employs a pulse measurement technique to capture the switching current of the capacitor. The pulse waveform applied to the ferroelectric capacitor in the latter approach resembles the actual waveform encountered in a typical ferroelectric memory access. This resemblance makes switching-current based models more suitable for use in high-speed-memory circuit simulations.