Ferroelectric capacitor
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Ferroelectric capacitor is a capacitor used in digital electronics as a component of ferroelectric RAM, a type of non-volatile computer memory.
In a ferroelectric capacitor, the dielectric layer is replaced with a thin ferroelectric film, typically made of lead zirconate titanate (PZT).
The stored value is read by applying an electric field on the memory capacitor. The amount of charge needed to flip the memory cell to the opposite state is measured and the previous state of the cell is revealed. This means that the read operation destroys the memory cell state, and has to be followed by a corresponding write operation, in order to write the bit back. This makes it similar to the ferrite core memory. The requirement for a write cycle for each read cycle, together with the high but not infinite write cycle limit, poses a potential problem for some special applications.
