Performance Comparison of Single Level STT and SOT MRAM Cells for Cache Applications

Abstract

The research on intrinsic spin of electrons results a new type of memory device, Spin-transfer-torque magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM). The property of non-volatility, high endurance, and highly scalable feature size makes STT-MRAM a strong contender for futuristic memory technologies. The basic storage unit is magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device and data is read/write by tunnel magneto resistance (TMR) effect and STT mechanism. The high switching current and read disturb of STT-MRAM has forced researchers to shift to a newer technology spin-orbit-torque (SOT)-MRAM. The spin Hall effect (SHE) based SOT-MRAM provides non-volatility with negligible leakage, high performance and endurance with lower switching current. In this paper, we provide a performance comparison of STT-MRAM and SOT-MRAM cell. Further, array level comparison is performed using NVSIM platform. The simulation results show that the SOT MRAM possess lower write current and energy-efficient as compared to STT MRAM.