Title :
Pulsed current switching of submicrometer MRAM cell
Author :
Bhattacharyya, Manoj ; Tran, Lung ; Nickel, Janice ; Anthony, Thomas
Author_Institution :
Hewlett-Packard Labs., Palo Alto, CA, USA
Abstract :
Thermally assisted switching of submicrometer magnetic tunnel junctions is investigated. It is found that writing can be done with pulses of the order of 1 ns. Switching current and switching current jitter are seen as strong functions of temperature, whereas both are only weakly dependent on current pulse duration. Micromagnetic modeling using a stochastic Landau-Lifschitz equation is used to understand thermal effects. The simulation predicts the observed switching current but does not explain the magnitude of the switching current jitter.
Keywords :
magnetic storage; magnetic switching; magnetic tunnelling; micromagnetics; random-access storage; tunnelling magnetoresistance; 1 ns; current pulse duration; micromagnetic modeling; pulsed current switching; stochastic Landau-Lifschitz equation; submicrometer MRAM cell; submicrometer magnetic tunnel junctions; switching current; switching current jitter; thermal effects; thermally assisted switching; Current measurement; Electrical resistance measurement; Jitter; Lungs; Magnetic field measurement; Pulse measurements; Space vector pulse width modulation; Stochastic processes; Temperature; Writing;
Journal_Title :
Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TMAG.2003.816241
