Study of harsh environment operation of flexible ferroelectric memory integrated with PZT and silicon fabric

M. T. Ghoneim,M. M. Hussain

doi:10.1063/1.4927913

M. T. Ghoneim, M. M. Hussain

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4927913

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Abstract

Flexible memory can enable industrial, automobile, space, and smart grid centered harsh/extreme environment focused electronics application(s) for enhanced operation, safety, and monitoring where bent or complex shaped infrastructures are common and state-of-the-art rigid electronics cannot be deployed. Therefore, we report on the physical-mechanical-electrical characteristics of a flexible ferroelectric memory based on lead zirconium titanate as a key memory material and flexible version of bulk mono-crystalline silicon (100). The experimented devices show a bending radius down to 1.25 cm corresponding to 0.16% nominal strain (high pressure of ∼260 MPa), and full functionality up to 225 °C high temperature in ambient gas composition (21% oxygen and 55% relative humidity). The devices showed unaltered data retention and fatigue properties under harsh conditions, still the reduced memory window (20% difference between switching and non-switching currents at 225 °C) requires sensitive sense circuitry for proper functionality and is the limiting factor preventing operation at higher temperatures.

Highlights

We report on the physical-mechanical-electrical characteristics of a flexible ferroelectric memory based on lead zirconium titanate as a key memory material and flexible version of bulk mono-crystalline silicon (100)
Utilizing the fundamental inverse proportionality between the flexural modulus
This wide temperature range covers the targeted harsh/extreme environment applications: (i) oil and gas industry’s deep well drilling temperature requirements are similar to inside a combustion engine in hot weather $200 C;3,27,28 (ii) a space craft on a mission to Mercury’s temperature requirements is 175 C and NASA’s extreme temperature electronics program has testing facilities for up to 250 C;29 and (iii) silicon is limited in electronic performance to below 250 C.30

Summary

Introduction

The devices showed unaltered data retention and fatigue properties under harsh conditions, still the reduced memory window (20% difference between switching and nonswitching currents at 225 C) requires sensitive sense circuitry for proper functionality and is the limiting factor preventing operation at higher temperatures. Since silicon has higher thermal stability than that of polymer/organic materials, the transformed flexible devices can be potentially leveraged for high-temperature operation needed for harsh/extreme environment applications.

Results

Conclusion