Perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction memory cells having shared source contacts

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10460778-B2
Application number	US-201715859040-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 29, 2017
Priority date	Dec 29, 2017
Publication date	Oct 29, 2019
Grant date	Oct 29, 2019

Abstract

A magnetic device, according to one approach, includes: a plurality of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (p-MTJ) cells, each p-MTJ cell having a transistor and a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) sensor. Moreover, each of the transistors includes a drain terminal, a source terminal, and a gate terminal. The magnetic device also includes: a first common word line coupled to the gate terminal of each transistor in a first subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells, a first common bit line coupled to a first end of each MTJ sensor in a second subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells, and a first common source line coupled to the drain terminal of each transistor in the first subset. A second end of each of the MTJ sensors in the second subset is coupled to the source terminal of each respective transistor in the second subset.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A magnetic device, comprising:
a plurality of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (p-MTJ) cells, each p-MTJ cell having a transistor and a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) sensor, wherein each of the transistors includes a drain terminal, a source terminal, and a gate terminal, wherein each of the p-MTJ cells has a cylindrical shape;
a first common word line coupled to the gate terminal of each transistor in a first subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells;
a first common bit line coupled to a first end of each MTJ sensor in a second subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells, wherein a second end of each of the MTJ sensors in the second subset is coupled to the source terminal of each respective transistor in the second subset; and
a first common source line coupled to the drain terminal of each transistor in the first subset.

2. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , wherein an effective cell size of each of the p-MTJ cells is 5F 2 , wherein F is the minimum feature size associated with a technology used to fabricate each of the p-MTJ cells.

3. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , wherein a diameter of each of the p-MTJ cells is about 11 nm.

4. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first subset of p-MTJ cells are oriented in a first column and the second subset of p-MTJ cells are oriented in a first row, wherein the first column extends perpendicular to the first row.

5. The magnetic device as recited in claim 4 , wherein the first column and the first row intersect such that the first and second subsets of p-MTJ cells include a common p-MTJ cell.

6. The magnetic device as recited in claim 5 , wherein each of the remaining p-MTJ cells in the first subset are also included in a respective row which intersects the first column, wherein each of the remaining p-MTJ cells in the second subset are also included in a respective column which intersects the first row.

7. The magnetic device as recited in claim 6 , comprising: a common source line coupled to the drain terminal of each transistor in each of the respective columns which intersect the first row.

8. The magnetic device as recited in claim 7 , comprising: a sense amplifier coupled to each of the respective common source lines.

9. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , comprising: a voltage generating circuit coupled to the first common source line.

Assignees

• Spin Memory Inc

Inventors

• Kim Kuk-Hwan
• Beery Dafna
• Sharma Gian
• Gajek Marcin
• Bozdag Kadriye Deniz
• Jagtiani Girish
• Ryan Eric Michael
• Tzoufras Michail
• Levi Amitay
• Walker Andrew J

Classifications

• G11C11/161 Primary

  details concerning the memory cell structure, e.g. the layers of the ferromagnetic memory cell · CPC title

• G11C11/1697

  Power supply circuits · CPC title

• G11C11/1675

  Writing or programming circuits or methods · CPC title