Experimental analysis on stochastic behavior of preswitching time in STT-MRAM

N. Yazigy (1) , J. Postel-Pellerin (1) , V. Della Marca (1) , K. Terziyan (1) , S. Nadifi (1) , R.C. Sousa (2) , P. Canet (1) , G. Di Pendina (2)

1 IM2NP - Institut des Matériaux, de Microélectronique et des Nanosciences de Provence
2 SPINTEC - SPINtronique et TEchnologie des Composants

In this paper we present an experimental study on the preswitching time of Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetic Random-Access Memory (STT-MRAM) with a resistance area R.A. ~ 12 Ω.μm2, for both transitions, Anti-Parallel to Parallel state and vice versa. A set of measurements is carried out operating at different applied voltages and temperatures ranging from 25 °C to 90 °C. As main results of our analysis, we show the decrease of the preswitching time with temperature increase. The Arrhenius law enables the extraction of the activation energy required to switch the cell in both states. Finally, we establish the relevant state transition probabilities using the Weibull distribution that best fits our results. The Weibull parameters highlight the preswitching time stochasticity and the variability of the switching characteristics of the STT-MRAM device, useful in high reliability applications.

Domains: Micro and nanotechnologies/Microelectronics

N. Yazigy, J. Postel-Pellerin, V. Della Marca, K. Terziyan, S. Nadifi, et al.. Experimental analysis on stochastic behavior of preswitching time in STT-MRAM. Microelectronics Reliability, 2022, 138, pp.114677. ⟨10.1016/j.microrel.2022.114677⟩. ⟨hal-03941025⟩