Advancing Materials and Integration Technologies for Next-Generation Ferroelectric Devices

5:00 pm - 5:25 pm

As the semiconductor industry continues to push the physical limits of scaling, materials science is key to unlocking performance improvements. Novel material systems and integrations are critical for scaling of the semiconductor devices and for enabling new types of devices. New material system becomes more complex in terms of number of elements and the control of interfaces, making development longer and more costly.

We use a method of quickly down selecting and fine-tuning multi-element materials which meets both physical and electrical key performance indicators. Starting with combinatorial physical vapor deposition and unit cell electrical test vehicles a wide elemental space is screened, and compositions are down selected. With a narrower materials composition space defined, the process is transferred to atomic layer deposition to check the physical and electrical performance with a 3D compatible process. At each step, different types of test devices (HAR structure for conformality, two-terminal devices and three-terminal devices with critical dimension below 100nm scale) are used to evaluate for improved thermal stability, better step coverage, reduced impurity levels, and the right electrical performance. Machine learning algorithms are also used to fine tune the materials for accelerated learnings.

Several ferroelectric material compositions and stacks have been optimized for Ferroelectric Field Emission Transistor (FeFET) devices using this method. These ferroelectric materials are being investigated for logic device scaling, enhancing existing memories such as DRAM and NAND flash and new types of memory.

Featured Speakers

Ganesh Panaman

President, Intermolecular

Ganesh Panaman is the President of Intermolecular® services at EMD Electronics, the Electronics business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. In his current role, Ganesh is dedicated to accelerating product time-to-market, securing first-mover advantages on disruptive technologies, and actively engaging with the dynamic startup ecosystem in the Bay Area.

With over two decades of experience, Ganesh has held pivotal roles across various high-tech industries, showcasing a strong aptitude for technology development and customer engagement. Previously, as Director of Customer Programs at Intermolecular Inc., Ganesh led key initiatives in DRAM, NVM, and quantum computing, forging long-term partnerships and ensuring the success of these programs. His extensive experience in semiconductor technology spans logic, DRAM, NVM, and solar, consistently delivering innovative solutions to meet diverse customer needs. Additionally, Ganesh has significant expertise in R&D and HVM scale-up from his tenure at First Solar, Solyndra, and Apple.

He holds master’s degrees in Material Science & Nano Engineering from University of Albany and in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.