Structured Materials Receives Grant to Make FPGA's Using a Proprietary Ferroelectric Material

Structured Materials Industries, Inc. (SMI) reports that it has received a Phase II SBIR from the DTRA to make FPGAs using a proprietary ferroelectric material. Structured Materials Industries, Inc. (SMI) has developed a new ferroelectric that is compatible with silicon interfaces using its own Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) tool technology. This film has been deposited as a replacement for the traditional silicon dioxide gate dielectric in a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor process. SMI’s film shows highly promising performance characteristics for FPGA applications compared to commercial/military antifuse technology and/or static random access memory (SRAM) designs. In the Phase II effort, SMI will optimize the geometry and properties of the ferroelectric (FE) field effect transistor (FET) and integrate the film in a “production quality” commercial fabrication facility. SMI’s project team members include qualified part manufacturers. The technology in this program will be demonstrated at 0.18μm design rules. Importantly, unlike current reprogrammable FPGA approaches, this technology also offers immunity to total dose and single event upsets. This technology is completely compatible with commercial FPGA architectures that utilize antifuse technology and with commercial cluster tool device based manufacturing.