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}} ).