Total Dose and Single Event Effects on 16 Mbit Standalone Spin-Transfer Torque MRAM with 45 nm CMOS Technology

Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM) is regarded as one of the most promising memory solutions for space missions since the storage mechanism of magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) as the memory unit is naturally insensitive to the radiation effects. For the application of highly reliable MRAM., the total dose and ion beam radiation responses of a commercial STT-MRAM are evaluated in this work. The results indicate that MTJ is inherently radiation tolerant, while the peripheral circuit exhibits soft errors during ion beam irradiation. We analyze the single event effect (SEE) and look into the soft errors caused by the single event upset (SEU). Finally, considering the special STT-MRAM architecture, possible inducements of the experimental phenomena are discussed.