Development and Investigation of Novel Logic-in-Memory and Nonvolatile Logic Circuits Utilizing Hafnium Oxide-Based Ferroelectric Field-Effect Transistors

Not only conventional computer architectures, such as the von-Neumann architecture with its inevitable von-Neumann bottleneck, but likewise the emerging field of edge computing require to substantially decrease the spatial separation of logic and memory units to overcome power and latency shortages. The integration of logic operations into memory units (Logic-in-Memory), as well as memory elements into logic circuits (Nonvolatile Logic), promises to fulfill this request by combining high-speed with low-power operation. Ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) based on hafnium oxide prove to be auspicious candidates for the memory elements in applications of that kind, as those nonvolatile memory elements are CMOS-compatible and likewise scalable. This work presents implementations that merge logic and memory by exploiting the natural capability of the FeFET to combine logic functionality (transistor) and memory ability (nonvolatility).

Evelyn Tina Breyer received the Dipl.-Phys. from the Chemnitz University of Technology in 2011. From 2011 until 2013 she joined the Group of Semiconductor Physics at the Chemnitz University of Technology and investigated organic/inorganic heterojunctions. In cooperation with General Electric in Berlin and as part of an integrated degree program she received the B. Eng. degree in applied electrical engineering from the Berlin School of Economics and Law in 2016. Since 2016 she has been a research associate and Ph.D. candidate at the Nanoelectronic Materials Laboratory (NaMLab gGmbH). Her main research interests include logic-in-memory and nonvolatile logic circuits based on ferroelectric field-effect transistors.