Development of a 64kb MRAM and a study on the magnetization reversal in sub-/spl mu/m sized magnetic tunnel junctions

We have demonstrated a fully integrated 64 kb MRAM using 0.24 /spl mu/m CMOS technology. We found that the etching of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ) was likely to bring about an electrical short between the top and bottom of an MTJ, and capping MTJs after etching was very effective in preventing the short. Besides, we performed a lot of magnetic transport measurements of magnetic tunnel junctions during the development and found that the magnetization reversal was affected by some geometrical factors of an MTJ.