Development of mass production system and process for ferroelectric thin films

The range of use such as ferroelectric random access non-volatile memories (FeRAM), piezoelectric MEMS devices has been extended greatly by developing the ferroelectric thin film technologies. Especially, the miniaturization of all devices is focused on the low power consumption operation, and various developments are advanced. The most typical material is Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT), though the control of composition and crystalline of PZT thin films were very difficult so far. Moreover, it greatly influences the process, the back and forth such as upper and lower electrodes and the barrier films. We firstly developed the mass production technologies for FeRAM with the PZT thin film by RF magnetron sputtering, and succeeded in the achievement of uniformity in the wafer, reproducibility and reliability of PZT thin films. Afterwards, the high temperature etching and the MOCVD technology had been developed as next generation FeRAM mass production. Moreover, piezoelectric MEMS mass production technology development has been done at the same time by applying the technology of the mass production sputter tool of FeRAM. Mass production system and processing technology for the ferroelectric devices on both FeRAM and piezoelectric MEMS are introduced.