Reliable Sub-Nanosecond Switching of a Perpendicular SOT-MRAM Cell without External Magnetic Field
Viktor Sverdlov, Alexander Makarov, Siegfried Selberherr
The steady increase in performance and speed of modern integrated circuits is continuously supported by constant miniaturization of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices. However, a rapid growth of the dynamic and stand-by power due to transistor leakages becomes a pressing issue.
A promising way to stop this trend is to introduce non-volatility. The development of an electrically addressable non-volatile memory combining high speed and high endurance is essential to achieve these goals. It is particularly promising to employ non-volatility in the main computer memory as a replacement of conventional volatile CMOS-based DRAM.
To further reduce the energy consumption, it is essential to replace caches (SRAM) in modern hierarchical multi-level processor memory structures with a non-volatile memory technology. The spin-orbit torque magnetic random access memory (SOT-MRAM) combines non-volatility, high speed, high endurance, and is thus suitable for applications in caches. However, its development is still impeded by the necessity of a static in-plane magnetic field.
We propose a magnetic field-free perpendicular SOT-MRAM, based on a cross-bar architecture and the use of two consecutive orthogonal sub-nanosecond current pulses. In this way small layout footprint and high integration density are guaranteed. Full Text
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