R&D: Nonvolatile Magnetic Half Adder Combined With Memory Writing

Applied Physics Letters has published an article written by Ziyao Lu, Chengyue Xiong, Hongming Mou, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE) and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China, Zhaochu Luo, Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland, Chi Fang, Caihua Wan, Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China, Huaqiang Wu, Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China, Xixiang Zhang, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 239955, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Xiaozhong Zhang, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE) and School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.

Abstract: “With the rapid development of modern computers, problems caused by the performance gap between processor and memory in von-Neumann architecture have become significant. Spintronic devices, benefitting from the potential of achieving in-memory computing, have become one of the most competitive candidates to bridge the performance gap. Great efforts have been made to realize the functions of modern computers using spintronic devices. Here, a nonvolatile magnetic arithmetic logic device working at room temperature based on coupling of anomalous Hall effect of Ta/CoFeB/MgO multilayers with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and elements with negative differential resistance characteristics has been proposed. Logic function of half adder has been experimentally demonstrated. This device could perform the arithmetic logic function of half adder and simultaneously write the computation result in storage bits in the process of performing logic operation. It has the potential to bridge the gap between arithmetic logic units and memory in modern computers.“

This work was sponsored by National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFA0206202) and National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11674190). The authors thank Beijing National Center for Electron Microscopy for providing research facilities.