Magnetic non‐volatile flip‐flop with spin‐Hall assistance

A novel multi‐bit non‐volatile flip‐flop (NVFF) written by spin‐Hall‐assisted spin‐transfer torque (STT) is proposed. This NVFF employs perpendicular‐anisotropy MTJs and requires an STT current combined with a spin‐Hall current to write the data. Thanks to the assistance of spin‐Hall effect (SHE), the incubation delay required by the conventional STT switching can be eliminated to achieve fast operation. Our proposed NVFF uses multi‐bit architecture and shows high‐density and low‐energy advantages over hybrid NV/volatile FFs in the application of the NV register file. Sim‐ulation results show that the proposed spin‐Hall‐assisted NVFF saves ∼31% storage density and ∼32% energy dissipation compared with the conventional STT‐NVFF. Moreover, the reliability of MTJ barrier is enhanced due to the reduction of the write voltage. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)