Electrical measurements on capacitor sizes in the submicron regime for the characterization of real memory cell capacitors

Abstract Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) and SrBi2Ta2O9 (SBT) are promising candidates for the use as cell capacitor materials in ferroelectric non-volatile memory devices (FeRAMs). For years it has been an outstanding challenge to perform electrical measurements on samples with pad sizes which are equal to the pad size of real cell capacitors of integrated memory devices. Up to now either larger sample capacitors or an array of several hundred capacitors in parallel could be investigated with typical measurement techniques [1]. But, both measurements can hardly detect the failure of a single capacitor in the submicron range.