BaMgF4 thin film development and processing for ferroelectric FETS

A ferroelectric memory field-effect transistor (FEMFET) where a ferroelectric thin film is incorporated directly into the gate structure of the transistor is attractive, because it provides not only nonvolatility, but also nondestructive readout (NDRO). At Westinghouse, we are currently developing a FEMFET using thin film barium magnesium fluoride (BaMgF4), a ferroelectric material that was discovered in 1969, but was not fabricated in thin film form until 1989. The BaMgF4 films are grown by evaporation in an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) chamber on clean Si(100). The natural tendency of these films to grow with the ferroelectric a-axis in the Si(100) plane has been overcome to obtain more random orientation with larger reversible polarization perpendicular to the film. A capping layer (SiO2) has been found to be essential for process integrability of these BaMgF4 films. Ti-W metallization produced only a slight reduction in the capacitance-voltage (C-V) memory window. Switching speed of these films has been measured to be 40 to 45 nanoseconds. The first FEMFET fabricated with BaMgF4 has exhibited 18 Volt memory hysteresis window with better than 105 on/off current ratio for 20 Volt programming.