New Type of Ferroelectric Memory Constructed Using α-In2Se3 Material

The ferroelectrical properties of materials have found a variety of uses over the years, including in semiconductor applications. Ferroelectric memory is among the most interesting and possibly world-changing as it could replace today’s fragile and (relatively) slow NAND Flash with something that’s more robust and scalable. Yet as with any good idea, finding the right materials and process to implement it is half the battle. Here is where a recently released paper in Advanced Science by Shurong Miao and colleagues demonstrates a FeFET-based memory cell design using α-In2Se3 material on platinum-based source-drain electrodes.

Schematic and SEM image of α-In2Se3-based FeFET. (Credit: Miao et al., 2023)

Important to note here is that FeFET (ferroelectric field-effect transistor) is distinct from FeRAM, with the latter having a DRAM-like structure whereby ferroelectric material takes the place of the capacitor in traditional DRAM. Such FeRAM has been commercially available since the mid-1990s, with applications including the storing of save states in Sega game console cartridges. FeRAM has benefits over NAND Flash in that it has far higher endurance, but it does not scale to smaller sizes that well, which keeps capacity of FeRAM chips low and thus relatively expensive.

Compared to DRAM, FeRAM is far more power efficient as it retains stored information even when left unpowered, yet it shares the same issue of destructive reads, which necessitates complex write cycles following each read. This is whe ..

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