Recent advances in MRAM technology

Author

Gallagher, W.J. ; Abraham, D. ; Assefa, S. ; Brown, S.L. ; DeBrosse, J. ; Gaidis, M. ; Galligan, E. ; Gow, E. ; Hughes, B. ; Hummel, J. ; Kanakasabapathy, S. ; Kaiser, Christian ; Lamorey, M. ; Maffit, T. ; Milkove, K. ; Lu, Yu ; Nowak, J. ; Rice, P. ; Sa

Author_Institution

IBM Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA

fYear

2005

Firstpage

72

Lastpage

73

Abstract

MRAM technology offers an attractive combination of performance, density, low power, non-volatility, and write endurance. While first stand-alone MRAM products appear poised for introduction, major technology advances are also being reported. In this review, we discuss our work on a 16Mbit demonstrator chip with a 1.42 μm² cell in 180 nm technology in the context of recent world wide advances in MRAM technology. These include a cell architecture that resolves the magnetic half select write disturb issue and an advanced tunnel barrier material, MgO, that promises much larger signals for MRAM read operations.

Keywords

magnesium compounds; magnetic storage; memory architecture; random-access storage; 180 nm; MRAM technology; MgO; cell architecture; demonstrator chip; magnetic half select write disturb; magnetic random access memory; read operation; tunnel barrier material; CMOS technology; Histograms; Magnetic hysteresis; Magnetic materials; Magnetic tunneling; Signal design; Signal resolution; Temperature; Tunneling magnetoresistance; Voltage control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Technology, 2005. (VLSI-TSA-Tech). 2005 IEEE VLSI-TSA International Symposium on

ISSN

1930-8868

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9058-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VTSA.2005.1497086

Filename

1497086