A nondestructive self-reference scheme for spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM)

Authors:
Yiran Chen;Hai (Helen) Li;Xiaobin Wang;Wenzhong Zhu;Wei Xu;Tong Zhang
Affiliations:
Seagate Technology, Bloomington, MN;PolyTech Institute of NYU, Brooklyn, NY;Seagate Technology, Bloomington, MN;Seagate Technology, Bloomington, MN;Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York;Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
Venue:
Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe
Year:
2010

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Abstract

We proposed a novel self-reference sensing scheme for Spin-Transfer Torque Random Access Memory (STT-RAM) to overcome the large bit-to-bit variation of Magnetic Tunneling Junction (MTJ) resistance. Different from all the existing schemes, our solution is nondestructive: The stored value in the STT-RAM cell does NOT need to be overwritten by a reference value. And hence, long write-back operation (of the original stored value) is eliminated. The robustness analyses of the existing scheme and our proposed nondestructive scheme are also presented. The measurement results from a 16kb testing chip successfully confirmed the effectiveness of our technique.