The use of voltage to accelerate the endurance degradation of PZT capacitors

A voltage vs. endurance model was created to predict the performance of PZT from 3 to 8 volts. Capacitors that are part of the street structure on finished wafer products were cycled from 10 to a total of le12 cycles. The switched charge was measured over 10 to 12 orders of magnitude in order to develop models to predict performance out to le15 cycles. The switched charge was found to degrade as a square function of the log of the number of cycles fatigued. The model was found to fit the data with an r(2) greater than .95. Utilizing the minimum allowable charge for a sense amplifier, this model could be used to predict part life over operating voltages.