Compact thermal modeling of spin transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction

Abstract

Magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) with spin transfer torque (STT) switching method features fast speed, low power, great scalability and high compatibility with conventional CMOS process. Nevertheless, its magnetic and electrical properties can be easily influenced by operation temperature and self-heating effect, which further results in performance degradation and reliability issues of MTJ based memories and logic circuits. This paper investigates the behaviors of MTJ under different temperatures and further proposes a model in consideration of temperature impact on performance of MTJ, which can be used to optimize the design of STT-MRAM in terms of dynamic operations and temperature tolerance.