Impact of Off-Axis External Magnetic Field Perturbation on the Write Error Slopes of Perpendicular STT-RAM Cell: Micromagnetic Study

Abstract

External magnetic field perturbation remains a key reliability issue for spin-transfer-torque magnetic random-access memory. Although several prototypes have been demonstrated already, the effects of external fields with varying directions are not well reported. Our macrospin-based study revealed a significant increase in write failures in the presence of small off-axis external magnetic fields. However, incoherent switching pathways, which are also known to impact the switching process, cannot be captured by a macrospin model. Here, we report the micromagnetic model study of the switching process of perpendicular nanomagnets in the presence of magnetic fields of varying magnitudes and directions. The results are consistent with the macrospin model prediction for smaller magnet sizes. For larger magnet sizes, the impact of the off-axis external magnetic field becomes much worse when incoherent magnetization modes dominate the switching process.