Experimental Demonstration of a Ferroelectric HfO2-Based Content Addressable Memory Cell

Abstract

In this work, we present an experimental demonstration of a content addressable memory (CAM) cell based on ferroelectric HfO2 field effect transistors (FeFETs). Our proposed ferroelectric CAM (FeCAM) utilizes a CMOS-compatible ferroelectric material, hafnium zirconium oxide (HZO), as the gate dielectric. We discuss operation of the FeCAM cell and propose a suitable architecture to realize in-memory computation as well as single clock cycle content-driven search. In addition, the HZO FeFET is analyzed for its intrinsic memory characteristic, and design considerations are identified for improving device and therefore projected system-level performance. Our results indicate that FeCAM is well-suited to accommodate demanding modern computational needs by sealing the gaps between conventional memory, logic, and continued device scaling.