Reliable Sub-Nanosecond Switching in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions for MRAM Applications

We demonstrate reliable sub-nanosecond switching in two-terminal spin transfer torque magnetoresistive random access memory (STT-MRAM) devices by using double spin-magnetic tunnel junctions (DS-MTJs). A write-error-rate (WER) of
$1{E} -6$
was achieved in 194 devices with 250-ps write pulses and tight distributions. The WER =
$1{E} -6$
was also demonstrated over a temperature range of −40 °C–85 °C in a single device with 225-ps write pulses. No degradation was observed after
$1{E}10$
write cycles in selected single devices, written with 250-ps write pulses. We compare the DS-MTJ device switching performance with the published results from the state-of-the-art three-terminal spin–orbit torque (SOT) MRAM devices and show a
$10\times $
reduction in switching current density (
${J}_{\text {c}}$
) and 3–
$10\times $
reduction in power consumption for devices with similar energy barriers (
${E}_{\text {b}}$
).