Device performance in a fully functional 800MHz DDR3 spin torque magnetic random access memory

Author

Janesky, J. ; Rizzo, N.D. ; Houssameddine, Dimitri ; Whig, R. ; Mancoff, F.B. ; DeHerrera, M. ; Sun, J.J. ; Schneider, Markus ; Chia, H.J. ; Aggarwal, Suhas ; Nagel, K. ; Deshpande, S. ; Andre, Torsten ; Alam, Shahinur ; Tan, Chee Hing ; Slaughter, J.M. ;

Author_Institution

Everspin Technol., Inc., Chandler, AZ, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

26-29 May 2013

Firstpage

17

Lastpage

20

Abstract

With the recent sampling of Everspin Technologies spin torque magnetoresistive random access memory (ST-MRAM), the performance gap between the high speed volatile memories of SRAM and DRAM and the non-volatile memories of hard disk drives (HDD), Flash and PCRAM has been significantly reduced. We have demonstrated a fully functional 64Mb DDR3 ST-MRAM built on 90nm CMOS technology. This device combines the high speed operation of DDR3 with 1.6 GT/s (DDR3-1600) and the endurance of DRAM with the non-volatility of HDD, Flash or PCRAM. Full functionality has been verified from 0°C to 70°C at up to 800MHz using a March6N pattern with full memory cycling and 0 fails. The memory element used was a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) with CoFeB-based magnetic layers and an MgO tunnel barrier. This paper compares the performance of ST-MRAM in speed, non-volatility and endurance with the various memory solutions available on the market.

Keywords

CMOS memory circuits; DRAM chips; MRAM devices; SRAM chips; cobalt compounds; disc drives; flash memories; hard discs; iron compounds; magnesium compounds; magnetic tunnelling; CMOS technology; CoFeB-MgO; DDR3 ST-MRAM; DDR3-1600; DRAM; Everspin Technologies; HDD; MTJ; March6N pattern; PCRAM; SRAM; device performance; flash; frequency 800 MHz; full memory cycling; fully functional DDR3 spin torque magnetic random access memory; hard disk drives; high speed operation; high speed volatile memories; magnetic layer; magnetic tunnel junction; memory element; memory solution; nonvolatile memories; size 90 nm; spin torque magnetoresistive random access memory; temperature 0 C to 70 C; tunnel barrier; Computer architecture; Junctions; Magnetic tunneling; Magnetization; Performance evaluation; Phase change random access memory; MRAM; Spin Torque; magnetic tunnel junction DDR3;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Memory Workshop (IMW), 2013 5th IEEE International

Conference_Location

Monterey, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-6168-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IMW.2013.6582086

Filename

6582086