Nanosecond Laser Anneal (NLA) for Si-Implanted HfO2 Ferroelectric Memories Integrated in Back-End of Line (BEOL)

10nm Si-implanted HfO
₂
is demonstrated to be ferroelectric for the first time when integrated in a Back- End-Of - Line (BEOL) 130nm CMOS. Scaled .28μm
²
. capacitors demonstrate excellent endurance (10
⁹
cycles measured at 4 V, extrapolated to be 10
¹²
at 3V), with tight coercive field distributions at wafer scale and excellent data retention at 85°C. To extend the ferroelectric BEOL compatibility of 10nm or thinner HfO
₂
- based films, but also to understand their crystallization dynamics, nanosecond laser anneal is demonstrated to be very appealing, even for undoped HfO
₂
.