Compact Model of Dielectric Breakdown in Spin-Transfer Torque Magnetic Tunnel Junction

By You Wang, Hao Cai, Lirida Alves de Barros Naviner, Yue Zhang, Xiaoxuan Zhao, Erya Deng, Jacques-Olivier Klein, Weisheng Zhao. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, 2016

166 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spin-transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) is a promising candidate for nonvolatile memories thanks to its high speed, low power, infinite endurance, and easy integration with CMOS circuits. However, a relatively high current flowing through an MTJ is always required by most of the switching mechanisms, which results in a high electric field in the MTJ and a significant self-heating effect. This may lead to the dielectric breakdown of the ultrathin (~1 nm) oxide barrier in the MTJ and cause functional errors of hybrid CMOS/MTJ circuits. This paper analyzes the physical mechanisms of time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) in an oxide barrier and proposes an SPICE-compact model of the MTJ. The simulation results show great consistency with the experimental measurements. This model can be used to execute a more realistic design according to the constraints obtained from simulation. The users can estimate the lifetime, the operation voltage margin, and the failure probability caused by TDDB in the MTJ-based circuits.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f45b6a6669b54617ba411ae47a14a79b539203ba