Many references are available on the properties and characteristics of ferroelectric materials and their memory application.1-3 The purpose of this paper is to present several scanning systems by which binary information can be stored and recalled from ferroelectric capacitor configurations. The circuitry to be described here was originally designed for testing of ferroelectric elements and employs an ordered or nonrandom scanning pattern. Most of the circuitry presented is, however, adaptable to random access application.

An electrostatically operated multicondenser memory matrix has been produced using ferroelectric dielectric material.Bits of information of bivalued character are stored in terms of bistable remanent polarization.Memory condensers in matrix crosspoints can be acted upon individually for writing or reading, by electrostatic excitation of corresponding matrix leads.Storage of information is permanently remanent and has no power requirements.The switching speed of individual bistable memory condensers is in, or below, the microsecond region.Sequential or random access types of scanning are equally adaptable to ferroelectric matrices.An inexpensive, small-size, large-capacity and lightweight memory is possible.