Hafnium oxide (HfO2)-based ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFETs) have revolutionized the emerging non-volatile memory area, especially with the potential to replace flash memories for several applications. In this article, we investigate the suitability of FeFETs memories, especially FeFET-based content addressable memory (CAM)-cells, as storage class memory under junction temperature variations. FeFETs with silicon oxynitride interfacial layer have been fabricated and characterized at various temperatures, varying from room temperature to 120◦C. Although the memory window, numbers of programmable states, and endurance deteriorate at high temperatures, FeFETs show excellent robustness in data retention, write latency, and read stability at all temperatures, especially for binary operation. Finally, system SPICE simulations using experimental data were conducted to gauge the robustness of the data-search operation using the CAM array under different temperatures. Despite temperature-variation-induced changes in FeFET devices, we have observed that binary CAM cells perform robust and unerring search operations for storing and searching data at temperatures up to 120 °C.

In this study, ferroelectric field-effect-transistors (FeFETs) with nitride (SiON) interface having various gate lengths (LG) and gate widths (WG) were investigated to study the influence of gate dimensions on the memory window (MW) and endurance characteristics of the FeFETs. The experimental results show the MW of FeFET increases with decreasing LG and increasing of WG due to the increased fringe effect of the metal gate electrode from parasitic fringing capacitance. Thus, in the design of FeFET, fringe effect must be considered carefully. However, no considerable impact was observed on endurance characteristics of the FeFETs as the gate dimensions were varied.