Embedded STT-MRAM opportunities in new system hierarchies

Emerging nonvolatile memory technology such as STT-MRAM (Spin Transfer Toque Magnetic RAM) is likely to become a promising technology to partly replace SRAM as embedded cache and to reduce the performance gap between the processor and cache. To take all advantages of STT-MRAM and SRAM, the use of STT-MRAM only and hybrid cache (SRAM & STT-MRAM) is investigated to construct new system hierarchies using new emerging technologies. This paper starts with the industry trend for memory subsystem that uses the emerging technologies to improve the performance of system architectures and to reduce power consumption, and focuses on the impact of integrating STT-MRAM as nonvolatile memory into current systems so as to create new system hierarchies.