Mitigating Read Failures in STT-MRAM

Abstract

Spin Transfer Torque Magnetic Random Access Memory (STT-MRAM) is an emerging non-volatile memory technology, as a leading candidate to replace conventional on-chip memories due to its various advantages such as high density, non-volatility, scalability, high endurance and CMOS compatibility. However, read and write operations in STT-MRAM are extremely vulnerable to manufacturing variations. In particular, the read operation is becoming more susceptible to failures since the read timing and read-disturb failures have conflicting requirements of read period. To overcome this issue, we propose a technique to reduce the read period without sacrificing the target reliability requirements. The reduced read period, in turn, results in improved read performance and reduced read-disturb rates. The results show that using this technique, the read period can be reduced by 50%, and the read-disturb probability by 51%.