CRYOGENIC MRAM FOR MEMORY AND COMPUTING OPERATIONS – CRYMCO

The microelectronics industry is seeking to develop low-temperature computing infrastructures to reduce their overall power electrical consumption. In some applications, the total energy consumption can be reduced by operating in a cryogenic environment. In this context, MRAM is a leading non-volatile memory alternative since technologies like phase change, resistive oxides and conductive bridge rely on heat driven reversal processes. Project CRYMCO proposes a solution to the reduce spin transfer torque driven magnetization reversal to achieve at least a 100 time reduction of the write current compared to room temperature, while maintaining the same magnetization retention time. Achieving nW power consumption in cryoMRAM cells could provide a breakthrough to use these cells as memories to locally store qubit states, allowing for efficient error correction code protocols in quantum information processing. In a long-term vision, CRYMCO seeks to establish cryo-MRAM integrated with quantum hardware, as an energy efficient platform for beyond-CMOS technology. The research in MRAM cells with thermal stability adjusted for low temperature operation, could find applications in research unconventional computing schemes using superparamagnetic tunnel junctions to generate random bitstreams. Recent examples describe how it is possible to use thermal fluctuations of low thermal stability cells to create a random number generator or logic functions using probabilistic bits.