Perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction memory cells having shared source contacts
A magnetic device, according to one approach, includes: a plurality of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (p-MTJ) cells, each p-MTJ cell having a transistor and a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) sensor. Moreover, each of the transistors includes a drain terminal, a source terminal, and a gate terminal. The magnetic device also includes: a first common word line coupled to the gate terminal of each transistor in a first subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells, a first common bit line coupled to a first end of each MTJ sensor in a second subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells, and a first common source line coupled to the drain terminal of each transistor in the first subset. A second end of each of the MTJ sensors in the second subset is coupled to the source terminal of each respective transistor in the second subset.
1. A magnetic device, comprising:
a plurality of perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (p-MTJ) cells, each p-MTJ cell having a transistor and a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) sensor, wherein each of the transistors includes a drain terminal, a source terminal, and a gate terminal, wherein each of the p-MTJ cells has a cylindrical shape;
a first common word line coupled to the gate terminal of each transistor in a first subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells;
a first common bit line coupled to a first end of each MTJ sensor in a second subset of the plurality of p-MTJ cells, wherein a second end of each of the MTJ sensors in the second subset is coupled to the source terminal of each respective transistor in the second subset; and
a first common source line coupled to the drain terminal of each transistor in the first subset.
2. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , wherein an effective cell size of each of the p-MTJ cells is 5F 2 , wherein F is the minimum feature size associated with a technology used to fabricate each of the p-MTJ cells.
3. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , wherein a diameter of each of the p-MTJ cells is about 11 nm.
4. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , wherein the first subset of p-MTJ cells are oriented in a first column and the second subset of p-MTJ cells are oriented in a first row, wherein the first column extends perpendicular to the first row.
5. The magnetic device as recited in claim 4 , wherein the first column and the first row intersect such that the first and second subsets of p-MTJ cells include a common p-MTJ cell.
6. The magnetic device as recited in claim 5 , wherein each of the remaining p-MTJ cells in the first subset are also included in a respective row which intersects the first column, wherein each of the remaining p-MTJ cells in the second subset are also included in a respective column which intersects the first row.
7. The magnetic device as recited in claim 6 , comprising: a common source line coupled to the drain terminal of each transistor in each of the respective columns which intersect the first row.
8. The magnetic device as recited in claim 7 , comprising: a sense amplifier coupled to each of the respective common source lines.
9. The magnetic device as recited in claim 1 , comprising: a voltage generating circuit coupled to the first common source line.