A High Reliability Sensing Amplifier for Hybrid MTJ/CMOS Circuits

Abstract

Spin transfer torque magnetic tunnel junction (STT-MTJ) based MRAM shows great performance such as zero standby power, outstanding CMOS compatibility, high density and endurance. Hybrid MTJ/CMOS circuits have been extensively studied for energy efficient applications. However, MRAM sensing operations still suffer from reliability issue owing to the inevitable process variations, voltage and temperature fluctuations. This paper proposes a high reliability sensing amplifier (HRSA) for hybrid MTJ/CMOS circuits, simulation is performed based on 28-nm CMOS design kit and 40-nm MTJ model. Simulation results show that the proposed sensing circuit achieves a lower sensing error rate (SER) compared to previous works over a wide temperature range (-55°C∽125°C). Proposed HRSA exhibits excellent tolerance to the temperature and process variations.