Voltage-Controlled Magnetic Tunnel Junctions for Processing-In-Memory Implementation

The processing-in-memory (PIM) paradigm has been considered as a promising alternative to break the bottlenecks of conventional von-Neumann architecture by realizing the unity of data storage and processing in the same die. On the road toward implementing such an architecture, finding a novel memory that can support both dense data storage and efficient logic processing is the critical step. In this letter, we report a voltage-controlled magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which is a potential candidate for PIM implementation. Stateful Boolean logic functions can be realized with a single device through the memory-like write/read operations. The device was fabricated and characterized at room temperature. Afterwards, typical Boolean logic operations, e.g., "OR", "AND", and "NXOR", were experimentally demonstrated with the fabricated MTJ device. The proposed approach opens up a new way for PIM implementation in spintronic memories.