Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

A new spin on magnetic memories

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 187–191 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Solid-state memory devices with all-electrical read and write operations might lead to faster, cheaper information storage.

Spin-transfer-torque magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) devices store information in the orientation of the magnetization of nanometre-scale ferromagnetic elements. As such, they are like hard disk drives, which use magnetic states to store information. In contrast to hard disk drives, however, STT-MRAM is written and read electrically, and does not have moving parts. This is a key difference that enables the integration of magnetic devices with semiconductor chips. Such devices might fulfil the speed requirements of a computer's working memory while having the inherent advantages of using magnetic states — that no energy is needed to retain information.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: STT-MRAM bit cell.
Figure 2: STT-MRAM electrical characteristics.
Figure 3: Write error rate versus the junction bias voltage.

References

  1. Slonczewski, J. C. Phys. Rev. B 39, 6995–7002 (1989).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Slonczewski, J. C. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 159, L1–L7 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Berger, L. Phys. Rev. B 54, 9353–9358 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Stiles, M. D. & Zangwill, A. Phys. Rev. B 66, 014407 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Jullière, M. Phys. Lett. 54A, 225–226 (1975).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Moodera, J. S., Kinder, L. S., Wong, T. M. & Meservey, R. Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 3273–3276 (1995).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Miyazaki, T. & Tezuka, N. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 139, L231–L234 (1995).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Wang, D., Nordman, C., Daughton, J. M., Qian, Z. & Fink, J. IEEE Trans. Magn. 40, 2269–2271 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Butler, W. H., Zhang, X-G., Schulthess, T. C. & MacLaren, J. M. Phys. Rev. B 63, 054416 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Yuasa, S., Nagahama, T., Fukushima, A., Suzuki, Y. & Ando, K. Nature Mater. 3, 868–871 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Parkin, S. S. P. et al. Nature Mater. 3, 862–867 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Min, T. et al. IEEE Trans. Magn. 46, 2322–2327 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Liu, J., Jaiyen, B., Veras, R. & Mutlu, O. in Proc. 39th Annu. Int. Symp. Computer Architecture (ISCA '12) 1–12 (IEEE Computer Society, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Lee, K., Kan, J. J. & Kang, S. H. in Proc. 2014 Int. Symp. Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED '14) 131–136 (ACM, 2014).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Thomas, L. et al. J. Appl. Phys. 115, 172615 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Ikeda, S. et al. Nature Mater. 9, 721–724 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Worledge, D. C. et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 022501 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Sun, J. Z. Phys. Rev. B 62, 570–578 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Bedau, D. et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 262502 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Liu, H. et al. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 358–359, 233–258 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Kent, A. D., Özyilmaz, B. & del Barco, E. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 3897–3899 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Huai, Y., Albert, F., Nguyen, P., Pakala, M. & Valet, T. Appl. Phys. Lett. 84, 3118–3120 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Hosomi, M. et al. in Proc. IEDM Tech. Dig. 459–462 (2005).

  24. Kishi, T. et al. in Proc. IEEE Int. Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 1–4 (2008).

  25. Worledge, D. C. et al. Proc. IEEE Int. Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 296–299 (2010).

  26. Nowak, J. J. et al. IEEE Magn. Lett. 2, 3000204 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Kim, W. et al. IEEE Int. Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) 24.1.1–24.1.4 (2011).

  28. http://www.everspin.com/

  29. Miron, I. M. et al. Nature Mater. 9, 230–234 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Liu, L. et al. Science 336, 555–558 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Mellnik, A. R. et al. Nature 511, 449–451 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Fan, Y. et al. Nature Mater. 13, 699–704 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

A.D.K. thanks G. Wolf for comments on the manuscript and for preparing Fig. 2. He acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, grant number NSF-DMR-1309,202. D.C.W. thanks J. DeBrosse for comments on the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andrew D. Kent is in the Department of Physics, New York University, New York, New York 10003, USA,

    Andrew D. Kent

  2. Daniel C. Worledge is at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA,

    Daniel C. Worledge

Authors
  1. Andrew D. Kent
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniel C. Worledge
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Andrew D. Kent or Daniel C. Worledge.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

A.D.K. is the founder of Spin Transfer Technologies.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kent, A., Worledge, D. A new spin on magnetic memories. Nature Nanotech 10, 187–191 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.24

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.24

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Find nanotechnology articles, nanomaterial data and patents all in one place. Visit Nano by Nature Research