Raytheon ferroelectric thin film development consortium

Raytheon Company has formed a joint industry-government-university research and development consortium to exploit the recent rapid advancements in ferroelectric thin-film ceramic technology for nonvolatile digital integrated circuit memory application. The ferroelectric thin-film consortium is a comparative study of materials composition and deposition techniques. To achieve a uniform comparison across the various deposition techniques, Raytheon prepares all sample substrates and distributes them to the member laboratories for film deposition of their choice. The samples are then returned to Raytheon for physical characterization (scanning electron microscopy, electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, Auger, etc.) and electrical characterization (breakdown voltage, switching voltage, stored charge, fatigue, etc.) of capacitors formed by the deposition of top electrodes sputtered on the films. The author describes the structure and operation of the consortium, as well as the participants and their respective deposition expertise, and briefly reports on technical progress to date