research-article

A Comparative Cross-layer Study on Racetrack Memories: Domain Wall vs Skyrmion

Authors:

Youguang Zhang,

Weisheng ZhaoAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems (JETC), Volume 16, Issue 1

Article No.: 2, Pages 1 - 17

https://doi.org/10.1145/3333336

Published: 03 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Racetrack memory (RM), a new storage scheme in which information flows along a nanotrack, has been considered as a potential candidate for future high-density storage device instead of hard disk drive (HDD). The first RM technology, which was proposed in 2008 by IBM, relies on a train of opposite magnetic domains separated by domain walls (DWs), named DW-RM. After 10 years of intensive research, a variety of fundamental advancements has been achieved; unfortunately, no product has been available until now. With increasing effort and resources dedicated to the development of DW-RM, it is likely that new materials and mechanisms will soon be discovered for practical applications. However, new concepts might also be on the horizon. Recently, an alternative information carrier, magnetic skyrmion, which was experimentally discovered in 2009, has been regarded as a promising replacement of DW for RM, named skyrmion-based RM (SK-RM). Intensive effort has been involved and amazing advances have been made in observing, writing, manipulating, and deleting individual skyrmions. So, what is the relationship between DW and skyrmion? What are the key differences between DW and skyrmion, or between DW-RM and SK-RM? What benefits could SK-RM bring and what challenges need to be addressed before application? In this review article, we intend to answer these questions through a comparative cross-layer study between DW-RM and SK-RM. This work will provide guidelines, especially for circuit and architecture researchers on RM.

References

[1]

C. Chappert, A. Fert, and F. N. Van Dau. 2007. The emergence of spin electronics in data storage. Nat. Mat., 6, 11 (2007), 813--823.

[2]

S. Parkin and S.-H. Yang. 2015. Memory on the racetrack. Nat. Nan. 10, 3 (2015), 195--198.

[3]

S. S. P. Parkin, M. Hayashi, and L. Thomas. 2008. Magnetic domain-wall racetrack memory. Science 320, 5873 (2008), 190--194.

[4]

A. Fert, V. Cros, and J. Sampaio. 2013. Skyrmions on the track. Nat. Nan. 8, 3 (2013), 152--156.

[5]

S. Krause and R. Wiesendanger. 2016. Spintronics: Skyrmionics gets hot. Nat. Mat. 15, 5 (2016), 493--494.

[6]

S. Fukami, T. Suzuki, Y. Nakatani, N. Ishiwata, M. Yamanouchi, S. Ikeda, N. Kasai, and H. Ohno. 2011. Current-induced domain wall motion in perpendicularly magnetized CoFeB nanowire. Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 8 (2011), 082504.

[7]

I. M. Miron, T. Moore, and H. Szambolics. 2011. Fast current-induced domain-wall motion controlled by the Rashba effect. Nat. Mat. 10, 6 (2011), 419--423.

[8]

K.-S. Ryu, L. Thomas, S.-H. Yang, and S. Parkin. 2013. Chiral spin torque at magnetic domain walls. Nat. Nan. 8, 7 (2013), 527--533.

[9]

K.-S. Ryu, L. Thomas, S.-H. Yang, and S. S. P. Parkin. Current induced tilting of domain walls in high velocity motion along perpendicularly magnetized micron-sized Co/Ni/Co racetracks. Appl. Phys. Exp. 5, 9 (2012), 093006.

[10]

S. Yang, K.-S. Ryu, and S. Parkin. 2015. Domain-wall velocities of up to 750 ms^−1 driven by exchange-coupling torque in synthetic antiferromagnets. Nat. Nan. 10, 3 (2015), 221--226.

[11]

S. Mühlbauer, B. Binz, and F. Jonietz. 2009. Skyrmion lattice in a chiral magnet. Science 323, 5916 (2009), 915--919.

[12]

R. Wiesendanger. 2016. Nanoscale magnetic skyrmions in metallic films and multilayers: A new twist for spintronics. Nat. Rev. Mat. 1, 7 (2016), 16044.

[13]

A. Fert, R. Nicolas, and C. Vincent. 2017. Magnetic skyrmions: Advances in physics and potential applications. Nat. Rev. Mat. 2, 7 (2017), 17031.

[14]

W. Kang, Y. Huang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2016. Skyrmion-electronics: An overview and outlook. Proc. IEEE 104, 10 (2016), 2040--2061.

[15]

N. Nagaosa and Y. Tokura. 2013. Topological properties and dynamics of magnetic skyrmions. Nat. Nan. 8, 12 (2013), 899--911.

[16]

W. Jiang, G. Chen, and K. Liu. 2017. Chiral magnetic skyrmions in thin films. Phys. Rep. 704 (2017), 1--49.

[17]

A. Soumyanarayanan, N. Reyren, A. Fert, and C. Panagopoulos. 2016. Emergent phenomena induced by spin--Orbit coupling at surfaces and interfaces. Nature 539, 7630 (2016), 509--517.

[18]

J. Sampaio, V. Cros, and S. Rohart. 2013. Nucleation, stability and current-induced motion of isolated magnetic skyrmions in nanostructures. Nat. Nan. 8, 11 (2013), 839--844.

[19]

X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, M. Ezawa, G. P. Zhao, and W. Zhao. 2015. Magnetic skyrmion transistor: Skyrmion motion in a voltage-gated nanotrack. Sci. Rep. 5 (2015), 11369.

[20]

F. Garcia-Sanchez, J. Sampaio, N. Reyren, V. Cros, and J.-V. Kim. 2016. A skyrmion-based spin-torque nano-oscillator. New J. Phys. 18, 7 (2016), 075011.

[21]

X. Zhang, E. Motohiko, and Y. Zhou. 2015. Magnetic skyrmion logic gates: Conversion, duplication, and merging of skyrmions. Sci. Rep. 5 (2015), 9400.

[22]

Y. Huang, W. Kang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2017. Magnetic skyrmion-based synaptic devices. Nanotechnology 28, 8 (2017), 08LT02.

[23]

S. Li, W. Kang, Y. Huang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2017. Magnetic skyrmion-based artificial neuron device. Nanotechnology 28, 31 (2017), 31LT01.

[24]

X. Chen, W. Kang, D. Zhu, X. Zhang, N. Lei, Y. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2018. A compact skyrmionic leaky--integrate--fire spiking neuron device. Nanoscale 10, 12 (2018), 6139--6146.

[25]

W. Kang, Y. Huang, C. Zheng, W. Lv, N. Lei, Y. Zhang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2016. Voltage controlled magnetic skyrmion motion for racetrack memory. Sci. Rep. 6, (2016) 23164.

[26]

R. Tomasello, E. Martinez, R. Zivieri, L. Torres, M. Carpentieri, and G. Finocchio. 2014. A strategy for the design of skyrmion racetrack memories. Sci. Rep. 4, (2014) 6784.

[27]

W. Koshibae, Y. Kaneko, J. Iwasaki, M. Kawasaki, Y. Tokura, and N. Nagaosa. 2015. Memory functions of magnetic skyrmions. Japanese J. Appl. Phys. 54, 5 (2015), 053001.

[28]

R. Tomasello, V. Puliafito, E. Martinez, A. Manchon, M. Ricci, M. Carpentieri, and G. Finocchio. 2017. Performance of synthetic antiferromagnetic racetrack memory: Domain wall versus skyrmion. J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50, 32 (2017), 325302.

[29]

Y. Zhou and M. Ezawa. 2014. A reversible conversion between a skyrmion and a domain-wall pair in a junction geometry. Nat. Commun. 5 (2014), 4652.

[30]

W. Jiang, P. Upadhyaya, W. Zhang, G. Yu, M. B. Jungfleisch, F. Y. Fradin, J. E. Pearson, Y. Tserkovnyak, K. L. Wang, O. Heinonen, S. G. te Velthuis, and A. Hoffmann. 2015. Blowing magnetic skyrmion bubbles. Science 349, 6245 (2015), 283--286.

[31]

W. Kang, C. Zheng, Y. Huang, X. Zhang, W. Lv, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2017. Compact modeling and evaluation of magnetic skyrmion-based racetrack memory. IEEE Trans. Elect. Dev. 64, 3 (2017), 1060--1068.

[32]

X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and M. Ezawa. 2016. Magnetic bilayer-skyrmions without skyrmion hall effect. Nat. Commun. 7 (2016), 10293.

[33]

W. Jiang, X. Zhang, G. Yu, W. Zhang, X. Wang, M. B. Jungfleisch, J. E. Pearson, X. Cheng, O. Heinonen, K. L. Wang, Y. Zhou, A. Hoffmann, and S. G. E. te Velthuis. 2017. Direct observation of the skyrmion hall effect. Nat. Phys. 13, 2 (2017), 162--169.

[34]

K. Litzius, I. Lemesh, and B. Krüger. 2017. Skyrmion hall effect revealed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy. Nat. Phys. 13, 2 (2017), 170--175.

[35]

I. Purnama, W. L. Gan, D. W. Wong, and W. S. Lew. 2015. Guided current-induced skyrmion motion in 1D potential well. Sci. Rep. 5 (2015), 10620.

[36]

X. Zhang, G. P. Zhao, and H. Fangohr. 2015. Skyrmion-skyrmion and skyrmion-edge repulsions in skyrmion-based racetrack memory. Sci. Rep. 5 (2015), 7643.

[37]

D. Zhu, W. Kang, S. Li, Y. Huang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2018. Skyrmion racetrack memory with random information update/deletion/insertion. IEEE Trans. Elect. Dev. 65, 1 (2018), 87--95.

[38]

S. Luo, M. Song, X. Li, Y. Zhang, J. Hong, X. Yang, and L. You. 2018. Reconfigurable skyrmion logic gates. Nano Lett. 18, 2 (2018), 1180--1184

[39]

M. Chauwin, X. Hu, F. Garcia-Sanchez, N. Betrabet, C. Moutafis, and J. S. Friedman. 2018. Conservative skyrmion logic system. Retrieved from: ArXiv:1806.10337, 2018.

[40]

W. Kang, C. Zheng, Y. Huang, X. Zhang, Y. Zhou, W. Lv, and W. Zhao. 2016. Complementary skyrmion racetrack memory with voltage manipulation. IEEE Elect. Dev. Lett. 37, 7 (2016), 924--927.

[41]

X. Chen, W. Kang, D. Zhu, X. Zhang, N. Lei, Y. Zhang, Y. Zhou, and W. Zhao. 2018. Complementary skyrmion racetrack memory enables voltage-controlled local data update functionality. IEEE Trans. Elect. Dev. 65, 10 (2018), 4667--4673.

[42]

J. Müller. 2018. Magnetic skyrmions on a two-lane racetrack. New J. Phys. 19, 2 (2017), 025002.

[43]

D. M. Crum, M. Bouhassoune, J. Bouaziz, B. Schweflinghaus, S. Blügel, and S. Lounis. 2015. Perpendicular reading of single confined magnetic skyrmions. Nat. Commun. 6, (2015), 8541.

[44]

C. Hanneken, F. Otte, and A. Kubetzka. 2015. Electrical detection of magnetic skyrmions by tunnelling non-collinear magnetoresistance. Nat. Nan. 10, 12 (2015), 1039--1042.

[45]

R. Tomasello, M. Ricci, P. Burrascano, V. Puliafito, M. Carpentieri, and G. Finocchio. 2017. Electrical detection of single magnetic skyrmion at room temperature. AIP Adv. 7, 5 (2017), 056022.

[46]

X. Dong, C. Xu, Y. Xie, and N. P. Jouppi. 2012. NVSim: A circuit-level performance, energy, and area model for emerging nonvolatile memory. IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integ. Circ. Syst. 31, 7 (2012), 994--1007

[47]

G. Wang, Y. Zhang, B. Zhang, B. Wu, J. Nan, X. Zhang, Z. Zhang, J. Klein, D. Ravelosona, Z. Wang, Y. Zhang, and W. Zhao. 2018. Ultra-dense ring-shaped racetrack memory cache design. IEEE Trans. Circ. Syst. I: Reg. Pap. 65, 1 (2018), 1--11.

[48]

N. Binkert, B. Beckmann, G. L. Black, S. K. Reinhardt, A. Basu, J. Hestness, D. R. Hower, T. Krishna, S. Sardashti, R. Sen, K. Sewell, M. Shoaib, N. Vaish, M. D. Hill, and D. A. Wood. 2011. The gem5 simulator. ACM SIGARCH Comput. Arch. News 39, 2 (2011), 1--7.

Digital Library

Cited By

Caglayan RMogulkoc AMogulkoc YModarresi MRudenko A(2024) Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and nontrivial spin textures in the Janus semiconductor monolayers Physical Review B10.1103/PhysRevB.110.094440110:9Online publication date: 27-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.110.094440
Hsieh YHuang PChang YChen BKang WShih W(2023)Granularity-Driven Management for Reliable and Efficient Skyrmion Racetrack MemoriesIEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing10.1109/TETC.2022.317180411:1(95-111)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TETC.2022.3171804
Xu RSha EZhuge QSong YWang HShi L(2023)Optimizing Data Placement for Hybrid SRAM+Racetrack Memory SPM in Embedded SystemsIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2022.318554842:3(847-859)Online publication date: Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCAD.2022.3185548
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A Comparative Cross-layer Study on Racetrack Memories: Domain Wall vs Skyrmion
1. Hardware
  1. Emerging technologies
    1. Spintronics and magnetic technologies
  2. Integrated circuits
    1. Semiconductor memory
      1. Non-volatile memory

Recommendations

Approximate storage for energy efficient spintronic memories
DAC '15: Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Design Automation Conference

Spintronic memories are promising candidates for future on-chip storage due to their high density, non-volatility and near-zero leakage. However, the energy consumed by read and write operations presents a major challenge to their use as energy-...
CORUSCANT: Fast Efficient Processing-in-Racetrack Memories
MICRO '22: Proceedings of the 55th Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture

The growth in data needs of modern applications has created significant challenges for modern systems leading to a "memory wall." Spintronic Domain-Wall Memory (DWM), provides near-SRAM read/write performance, energy savings and non-volatility, ...
Cross-layer racetrack memory design for ultra high density and low power consumption
DAC '13: Proceedings of the 50th Annual Design Automation Conference

The racetrack memory technology utilizes magnetic domains along a nanoscopic wire to obtain ultra-high data storage density. The recent success in the planar racetrack nanowire promised its fabrication feasibility and future scalability, bringing more ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems

ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems Volume 16, Issue 1

January 2020

232 pages

ISSN:1550-4832

EISSN:1550-4840

DOI:10.1145/3365593

Editor:
Ramesh Karri
Polytechnic Institute of New York University, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Journal Family

ACM Journals for the Design of Smart and Connected Systems

Publication History

Published: 03 October 2019

Accepted: 01 May 2019

Revised: 01 March 2019

Received: 01 November 2018

Published in JETC Volume 16, Issue 1

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Funding Sources

International Mobility Projects
National Key Technology Program of China
National Natural Science Foundation of China

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

15
Total Citations
View Citations
969
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)133
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)28

Reflects downloads up to 22 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Caglayan RMogulkoc AMogulkoc YModarresi MRudenko A(2024) Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and nontrivial spin textures in the Janus semiconductor monolayers Physical Review B10.1103/PhysRevB.110.094440110:9Online publication date: 27-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.110.094440
Hsieh YHuang PChang YChen BKang WShih W(2023)Granularity-Driven Management for Reliable and Efficient Skyrmion Racetrack MemoriesIEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing10.1109/TETC.2022.317180411:1(95-111)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TETC.2022.3171804
Xu RSha EZhuge QSong YWang HShi L(2023)Optimizing Data Placement for Hybrid SRAM+Racetrack Memory SPM in Embedded SystemsIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2022.318554842:3(847-859)Online publication date: Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCAD.2022.3185548
Venkat GAllwood DHayward T(2023)Magnetic domain walls: types, processes and applicationsJournal of Physics D: Applied Physics10.1088/1361-6463/ad056857:6(063001)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/ad0568
Yasuda THoriuchi TSuemasu T(2023)Fabrication of highly oriented Mn4N/Pt epitaxial bilayer structure on MgO(001) for spintronics applicationsAIP Advances10.1063/5.016579113:10Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0165791
Li SLin XLi PZhao SSi ZWei GKoopmans BLavrijsen RZhao W(2023)Ultralow Power and Shifting-Discretized Magnetic Racetrack Memory Device Driven by Chirality Switching and Spin CurrentACS Applied Materials & Interfaces10.1021/acsami.3c06447Online publication date: 15-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c06447
Peng XYang MTsui HLeung CKang WOshana R(2022)SMARTProceedings of the 59th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference10.1145/3489517.3530538(829-834)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3489517.3530538
Orlov VIvanov AOrlova IPatrin G(2022)The Drift of Magnetic Vortices in a Random Field of Anchoring CentersIEEE Transactions on Magnetics10.1109/TMAG.2022.316000858:5(1-10)Online publication date: May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMAG.2022.3160008
Chang JChen T(2022)When B-Tree Meets Skyrmion Memory: How Skyrmion Memory Affects an Indexing SchemeIEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems10.1109/TCAD.2022.319751941:11(3814-3825)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TCAD.2022.3197519
Wang JLiu JWang DZhang SFan X(2022)MemUnison: A Racetrack-ReRAM-combined Pipeline Architecture for Energy-Efficient in-Memory CNNsIEEE Transactions on Computers10.1109/TC.2022.3148858(1-1)Online publication date: 2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/TC.2022.3148858
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents