SEPARATE WRITE AND READ ACCESS ARCHITECTURE FOR MAGNETIC TUNNEL JUNCTION

摘要

A magnetoresistive device is provided with separate read and write architecture. In one embodiment, a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) has a nonmagnetic nonconductive barrier layer sandwiched between two ferromagnetic conducting layers (202). A first read line (204) is coupled to a first ferromagnetic layer and a second read line (206) is coupled to a second ferromagnetic layer such that a voltage difference between the two read lines will produce a current flowing perpendicularly through each layer of the MTJ. A first write line (208) is separated from the first read line by a first insulator and a second write line (210) is separated from the second read line by a second insulator.