The handling of a large number of inhomogeneous and unstructured data (text, video, sound etc.) requires a large computing power as well as an unconventional, intelligent computation and data storage approach subject to energy resources constraints.

Our target is to develop a technology platform based on ferroelectric Hf(Zr)O₂ ranging from scalable non-volatile embedded memories to memristive electronic synapse and neuron devices. HfO₂ is a key gate dielectric material that has enabled the scaling of nanoelectronics devices. The discovery of ferroelectricity in this material has opened the way for a number of applications taking advantage of the compatibility of this material with Si processing.

Leveraging prior involvement in H2020 European projects 3eFERRO (twitter (X): @3eFerro) in 2017-2020 and BeFerroSynaptic (web: https://beferrosynaptic.eu/ , twitter(X): @BeFerroSynaptic) in 2019-2022, the lab extends the development of electronic synapses made of ferroelectric Hafnia-based memristors within three new HORIZON EUROPE projects: ViTFOX , FIXIT and CONCEPT as well as project ARSYF, part of the Romanian Recovery and Resilience Plan.

ViTFOX project ( https://vitfox.eu/)  relies on complementary EU and Korean competences to build a Vision Transformer AI chip.  ESSL lab as the coordinator of ViTFOX is involved in critical parts of the project to heterogeneously integrate with CMOS, using wafer bonding, a ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ) cross-bar array with synaptic weights. The final goal will be to valorize the technology using FAMES and APECS pilot lines of CHIPS JU as a first step towards commercialization in ten years from now.

In FIXIT project (http://fixit-project.eu/), NCSRD is investigating the ferroelectric switching of ferroelectric synaptic devices at small lateral dimensions and integrates 32x32 cross bar synaptic arrays both, monolithically in the BEOL of CMOS and heterogeneously by flip chip bonding. 

In CONCEPT project (https://conceptproject.eu/), NCSRD investigates epitaxial HZO ferroelectrics grown on crystalline semiconductor oxides with the aim to find the influence of epitaxial quality on the synaptic plasticity of memristor devices.

The aforementioned work is expected to improve the performance and reliability of ferroelectric memristor synapses and their energy efficiency to make them suitable for in-memory computing and bio-inspired neuromorphic computing.