  Ferroelectric field-effect transistors (Fe-FETs) with ferroelectric hafnium
oxide (FE HfO2) as gate insulator are being extensively explored as a promising
device candidate for three-dimensional (3D) NAND memory application. FE HfO2
exhibits long retention over 10 years, high endurance over 1012 cycles, high
speed with sub-ns polarization switching, and high remnant polarization of
10-30 {\mu}C/cm2. However, the performance of Fe-FETs is known to be much worse
than FE HfO2 capacitors, which is not completely understood. In this work, we
developed a comprehensive Fe-FET model based on a charge balance framework. The
role of charge balance and the impact of leakage-assist-switching mechanism on
the memory characteristics of Fe-FETs with M/FE/DE/S
(Metal/Ferroelectric/Dielectric/Semiconductor) gate stack is studied. It is
found that the FE/DE interface and DE layer instead of FE layer is critical to
determine the memory characteristics of Fe-FETs, and experimental Fe-FETs can
be well explained by this model, where the discrepancy between FE capacitors
and Fe-FETs are successfully understood.
