One-Transistor Ternary Content-Addressable Memory Based on Localized Ferroelectric Switching for Massive and Accurate Routing

Abstract

A novel one-transistor (1T) ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) in which the don't care state 'X' is implemented based on the localized ferroelectric polarization switching in the ambipolar ferroelectric tunnel field-effect transistors is proposed. Using local polarization switching scheme, two threshold voltages for forward and ambipolar modes are independently shifted to write 'X'. Cell characteristics are experimentally demonstrated to be superior to conventional 1T TCAM implementation in terms of leakage current suppression and variation robustness. Consequently, the proposed 1T TCAM enables reliable in-memory search operations in massive arrays.