High-performance low-energy STT MRAM based on balanced write scheme

Authors:
Dongsoo Lee;Sumeet Kumar Gupta;Kaushik Roy
Affiliations:
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA;Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA;Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2012 ACM/IEEE international symposium on Low power electronics and design
Year:
2012

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Abstract

It is well known that high write time/energy in STT MRAM are aggravated by the asymmetry in write currents for '0'→'1' and '1'→'0' transitions. This asymmetry is primarily due to the source degeneration of the access transistor during write. In this work, we propose a design methodology which avoids the source degeneration of the access transistor, leading to balanced switching times for '0'→'1' and '1'→'0' transitions. This is achieved by using an additional (negative) bit-line voltage and reduced word-line voltage. The proposed method reduces write time (by ~40%) and write energy (by 65%), enhances reliability of MTJ, and significantly improves tolerance to process variation. In the proposed scheme, source-line can be directly connected to ground signal leading to a compact cell layout.