Grain Size and Orientation Control in Lead-Free (Bi,La)4Ti3O12 Thin Film Deposited by Spin-On Method for High Density FeRAM Device

Abstract

A 16Mb 1T1C FeRAM device was successfully fabricated with the lead-free BLT capacitors. The average value of the switchable polarization obtained in the 32k-array (unit capacitor size: 0.68 μm2) BLT capacitors was about 16 μC/cm2 at the applied voltage of 3V and the uniformity within an 8-inch wafer was about 2.8%. But random bit failures were detected during the measuring the bit-line signal of each cell. It was revealed that the grain size and orientation of the BLT thin film were severely non-uniform. Therefore, the grain size and orientation was optimized by varying the process conditions of nucleation step. The random bit failure issue was solved by adopting the optimized BLT film. The cell signal margin of the optimized FeRAM device was about 340 mV.