A 4-Mb toggle MRAM based on a novel bit and switching method

• Published in: IEEE transactions on magnetics Vol. 41; no. 1; pp. 132 - 136
• Main Authors: Engel, B.N., Akerman, J., Butcher, B., Dave, R.W., DeHerrera, M., Durlam, M., Grynkewich, G., Janesky, J., Pietambaram, S.V., Rizzo, N.D., Slaughter, J.M., Smith, K., Sun, J.J., Tehrani, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-01-2005; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Antiferromagnetism; Balancing; Circuit design; Circuits; CMOS technology; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electric resistance; Exact sciences and technology; Immunity; Magnetic film memories; Magnetic flux; Magnetic materials; Magnetic semiconductors; Magnetic separation; Magnetic switching; magnetic tunnel junction; Magnetic tunneling; Magnetism; magnetoresistive device; Magnetoresistive random access memory; magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM); Materials science; micromagnetic switching; MRAM integration; Other topics in materials science; Performance enhancement; Physics; random access memories (RAMs); Random access memory; Switching; magnetic tunnel junction; Random-access storage; random access memories (RAMs); MRAM integration; Magnetic film memories; Magnetic materials; micromagnetic switching; magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM); magnetoresistive device; Switching; Magnetic properties; Tunnels
• ISSN: 0018-9464; 1941-0069; 1941-0069
• DOI: 10.1109/TMAG.2004.840847

A 4-Mb magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) with a novel magnetic bit cell and toggle switching mode is presented. The circuit was designed in a five level metal, 0.18-mum complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process with a bit cell size of 1.55 mum 2 . The new bit cell uses a balanced synthetic antiferromagnetic free layer and a phased write pulse sequence to provide robust switching performance with immunity from half-select disturbs. This switching mode greatly improves the operational performance of the MRAM as compared to conventional MRAM. A detailed description of this 4-Mb toggle MRAM is presented