A research group led by Professor Hideo Ohno who is director of the Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems and professor of Research Institute of Electrical Communication at Tohoku University has successfully improved nonvolatility of perpendicular anisotropy Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) devices, which are the key technology to cut standby power of system LSI to zero, by applying a new structure of MTJ devices, through an industry-academia cooperative research with Hitachi, Ltd. When the configuration of two magnets (magnetic layers) in perpendicular MTJs is antiparallel, repulsion arises between each magnet. As a result, the direction of magnets becomes unstable, and its thermal stability Δ (i.e. non-volatility) decreases. In order to address this issue, a novel structure –step structure- was utilized to perpendicular anisotropy MTJs, which results in improvement of Δ by reduction of repulsion force between the magnets, indicating that nonvolatility for system LSI was achieved. The improvement of non-volatility of the MTJs has greatly advanced the realization of extremely low power consumption system LSI.

 The research has been conducted under a research program "Research and Development of Ultra-low Power Spintoronics-based VLSIs" supported by Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST) of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. This achievement was presented on June 16, 2011,in an International conference "2011 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits" held in Kyoto from June 13 to 17, 2011.

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