Physics / mechanism
Ferroelectric RAM exploits bistable spontaneous polarization in a ferroelectric capacitor—typically PZT (lead zirconate titanate) or HZO (hafnium zirconium oxide)—integrated with a select transistor (1T1C or 1T). Applying a voltage above the coercive field (~1–3 V for HZO) switches polarization state; remnant polarization (Pr ~10–25 µC/cm²) is retained with zero standby power. Read is destructive, requiring a write-back cycle. Key figures: sub-100 ns write, endurance 10⁹–10¹⁴ cycles (HZO-based), data retention >10 years at 85 °C. HZO’s CMOS-compatibility (ALD deposition, sub-10 nm films) has re-energized the field after decades of PZT’s integration complexity limiting it to niche MCU/IoT (TI, Cypress/Infineon, Fujitsu).
Competitive landscape
FeRAM competes directly with MRAM, RRAM/ReRAM, and Flash in the embedded NVM segment, plus SRAM for cache-adjacent ultra-low-power applications.
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- Can HfO2 FeRAM / FeCAP endurance and retention reach DRAM-replacement bars (FMC DRAM+)?
- Does FeCAP-based compute become a credible memcapacitor competitor?