Nondestructive microstructural diagnostic of integrated ferroelectric capacitor arrays: Correlation with electrical characteristics

• Published in: Journal of applied physics 2006-03, Vol.99 (5), p.054504-054504-5
• Main Authors: Muller, Ch, Menou, N., Barrett, R., Save, D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0021-8979; 1089-7550
• DOI: 10.1063/1.2176110

Considering the critical role of the storage capacitor on the reliability of ferroelectric random access memories (FeRAM), it is of particular interest to analyze the electrical and microstructural characteristics of the ferroelectric capacitor after the integration steps. In addition to standard electrical testing, the architecture of memory cell arrays in 0.35 μ m complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology was characterized using an original approach combining microfocused synchrotron x-ray fluorescence and diffraction. A 1.5 kbyte FeRAM memory block was scanned with a step size of 0.2 μ m while simultaneously acquiring fluorescence spectra and diffraction patterns in order to obtain, respectively, chemical and crystallographic mapping of the thin films constituting the memory cell. The excellent agreement observed between measured data and memory cell design explains the good electrical characteristics of the analyzed FeRAM chips.