An Ultra-Dense One-Transistor Ternary-Content-Addressable Memory Array Based on Non-Volatile and Ambipolar Fin Field-Effect Transistors

An ultra-dense one-transistor (1T) ternary-content addressable memory (TCAM) array is reported that is based on high-performance, non-volatile, and ambipolar ferroelectric (Fe) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) fin field-effect transistors (FinFETs). Because of the multistates in the Fe layer and the ambipolar characteristics, TCAM functions were realized on a single device. From the advanced CMOS process and the metallic source and drain (MSD) engineering, a maximum driving ON-current of
$\sim 0.1~\mu \text{A}/\mu \text{m}$
and a
$\sim 1000$
ON/OFF ratio at
${V}_{\text {GS}}= -0.25$
V were realized for the 1T TCAM cell. This indicated large-array integration feasibility. In addition,
${2} \times {2}$
and
${1} \times {8}$
TCAM arrays are demonstrated. The quasi-linear dependence of a matching line (ML) voltage with the number of mismatched bits indicated a potential for Hamming-distance computing in area- and energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) processors.