A highly scalable STT-MRAM fabricated by a novel technique for shrinking a magnetic tunnel junction with reducing processing damage

摘要

A “shrink process” for reducing the size of a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and mitigating the MTJ processing damage by using a sequence of oxidation and covering silicon dioxide (SiO2) film after MTJ etching is proposed. Using the novel process, MR (magneto-resistance) ratio was improved more than 10% and junction size was able to be reduced to 20-nm diameter in a MTJ with processing size of 35-nm diameter and, as a result, the switching current was successfully reduced more than 60%.