CIES Consortium

National Projects

CAO ImPACT Project

Ohno implementation branch:
Spintronics integrated circuit

With the “Ohno Implementation Branch: Spintronics integrated circuit project” (project leader : Prof. Tetsuo Endo) in ImPACT program (program manager : Prof. Masashi Sahashi), the Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems (CSIS) at Tohoku University by collaborating with our center and Research Institute of Electrical Communication is aiming at realization of high performance microcontroller unit (MCU) with power consumption of lower than 100μW by using two-terminal or three-terminal spintronics devices, thus aiming at creating novel integrated circuits technology with non-volatility.

Our center is assuming a role in modeling spintronics devices for integrated circuits design, and developing automated design tool and integration process of spintronics devices with CMOS devices.

Using these developed technologies, we have fabricated a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ)-based nonvolatile MCU chip and demonstrated the operation of ultra-low power consumption of 50μW or less at a high-speed operating frequency of 200MHz. This MCU chip provides both the world's highest processing performance and energy efficiency for highly functional IoT sensor nodes powered by harvested energy, which is expected as a basic technology for realizing Society 5.0.

• ImPACT