Spin Torque and Field-Driven Perpendicular MRAM Designs Scalable to Multi-Gb/Chip Capacity

Abstract

In this paper, we present a micromagnetic analysis of two novel magnetoresistive memory designs, both of which utilize the material-intrinsic perpendicular uniaxial magnetic anisotropy for retaining memory states. The analysis shows that such perpendicular memory element design allows the utilization of thick magnetic film, thereby enabling downsize scalability of each memory element while maintaining sufficient thermal stability. One of the designs is to utilize direct current injection for switching the memory states via the effect of spin momentum transfer. The other design utilizes current-generated field for switching. The performance characteristics of both designs are reported