A 16-Mb MRAM featuring bootstrapped write drivers

Author

Gogl, Dietmar ; Arndt, Christian ; Barwin, John C. ; Bette, Alexander ; DeBrosse, John ; Gow, Earl ; Hoenigschmid, Heinz ; Lammers, Stefan ; Lamorey, Mark ; Lu, Yu ; Maffitt, Tom ; Maloney, Kim ; Obermaier, Werner ; Sturm, Andre ; Viehmann, Hans ; Willmot

Author_Institution

IBM/Infineon MRAM Dev. Alliance, Hopewell Junction, NY, USA

Volume

40

Issue

4

fYear

2005

fDate

4/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

902

Lastpage

908

Abstract

A 16-Mb magnetic random access memory (MRAM) is demonstrated in 0.18-μm three-Cu-level CMOS with a three-level MRAM process adder. The chip, the highest density MRAM reported to date, utilizes a 1.42μm² 1-transistor 1-magnetic tunnel junction (1T1MTJ) cell, measures 79 mm² and features a ×16 asynchronous SRAM-like interface. The paper describes the cell, architecture, and circuit techniques unique to multi-Mb MRAM design, including a novel bootstrapped write driver circuit. Hardware results are presented.

Keywords

CMOS memory circuits; bootstrap circuits; copper; driver circuits; integrated circuit design; magnetic storage; magnetic tunnelling; memory architecture; random-access storage; 0.18 micron; 16 Mbit; Cu; asynchronous SRAM-like interface; bootstrapped write driver circuit; cell architecture; circuit techniques; high density MRAM; magnetic random access memory; magnetic tunnel junction cell; multi-Mb MRAM design; three-Cu-level CMOS; three-level MRAM process adder; Adders; CMOS process; CMOS technology; Density measurement; Design optimization; Driver circuits; Hardware; Random access memory; Semiconductor device measurement; Vehicles; 16 Mb; 1T1MTJ; MRAM; architecture; bootstrap; cell; driver; memory;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2004.842856

Filename

1424221