MRAM with lamellar structure as free layer

Author

Baek, I.G. ; Lee, J.E. ; Kim, H.-J. ; Ha, Y.K. ; Bae, J.S. ; Oh, S.C. ; Park, S.O. ; Chung, U.-I. ; Lee, N.I. ; Kang, H.K. ; Moon, J.T.

Author_Institution

Process Dev. Team, Semicond. R&D Center, Kyonggi-do, South Korea

fYear

2003

fDate

8-10 Dec. 2003

Abstract

The key factors to improve the switching characteristics are systematically analyzed to develop high density MRAM with a reliable operating margin. We demonstrated that roughness control of MTJ films, choice of free layer materials with small Ms, and optimized cell shape can effectively suppress the switching distribution. As a novel free layer scheme, a lamellar structure is proposed and found to improve the switching characteristics by suppressing the grain growth in the ferromagnetic layer.

Keywords

magnetic storage; magnetic tunnelling; random-access storage; MTJ film roughness control; cell shape optimization; ferromagnetic layer grain growth suppression; free layer materials; high density MRAM; lamellar free layer structure; magnetic random access memory; magnetic tunnel junction; reliable operating margin; switching characteristics; switching field distribution; CMOS process; Magnetic films; Magnetic materials; Magnetic separation; Magnetic tunneling; Moon; Random access memory; Saturation magnetization; Shape control; Writing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electron Devices Meeting, 2003. IEDM '03 Technical Digest. IEEE International

Conference_Location

Washington, DC, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7872-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEDM.2003.1269408

Filename

1269408