Switching Dynamics of Multidomain Ferroelectric Devices: Physical Modeling Approaches, Experimental Validation, and Design-Space Exploration

This paper presents a custom modeling framework for ferroelectric (FE) devices that can be embedded in a hierarchical circuit solver and is thus amenable to technology-device-circuit codesign. The nucleation-limited switching (NLS) model with an updated Merz law and incubation time models, accounting for accumulation of stimulation, is introduced to model the polarization switching for arbitrary input voltage pulses. The readout of the FE state is accomplished in a ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) geometry in which the Poisson equation, charge balance equation, tunneling current and drift-diffusion current equations are solved self-consistently. The model is validated by comparing the model-generated output with the measurement data of fabricated FE capacitors and FTJs. The predictive power of the model is utilized to explore the impact of technology options on the FTJ device metrics, namely its on- and off-current and tunneling electroresistance. The model developed here can be readily used for a variety of FE-based devices, such as FTJs, FECAPs, FEFETs, and can enable timing-accurate and technology-sensitive circuit design of heterogeneous computational substrates.