Stateful Reconfigurable Logic via a Single-Voltage-Gated Spin Hall-Effect Driven Magnetic Tunnel Junction in a Spintronic Memory

• Published in: IEEE transactions on electron devices Vol. 64; no. 10; pp. 4295 - 4301
• Main Authors: He Zhang, Wang Kang, Lezhi Wang, Wang, Kang L., Weisheng Zhao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.10.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: CMOS; Critical current density (superconductivity); Data storage; Feasibility; In-memory logic (IML); Logic; Logic functions; Magnetic effects; Magnetic switching; magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ); Magnetic tunneling; Magnetization; Product development; R&D; Research & development; Resistance; spin Hall effect (SHE); Spintronics; Switches; voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA)
• ISSN: 0018-9383; 1557-9646
• DOI: 10.1109/TED.2017.2726544

Stateful in-memory logic (IML) is a promising paradigm to realize the unity of data storage and processing in the same die, exhibiting great feasibility to break the bottleneck of the conventional von Neumann architecture. On the roadmap toward developing such a logic platform, a critical step is the effective and efficient realization of a complete set of logic functions within a memory. In this paper, we report a realization of stateful reconfigurable logic functions via a single three-terminal magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device within a spintronic memory by exploiting the novel voltage-gated spin Hall-effect driven magnetization switching mechanism. This proposed reconfigurable IML methodology can be implemented within either a typical memory array or a cross-point array architecture. The feasibility of the proposed approach is successfully demonstrated with hybrid MTJ/CMOS circuit simulations. We believe our work may promote the research and development of the revolutionary IML for future non-von Neumann architectures.