Patent ID: 7465589

Claim:
A method of fabricating a multi-state magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) device comprising the steps of: providing a substrate defining a surface; supporting a base electrode on the surface of the substrate; and forming an MRAM cell by forming a pinned region having a first ferromagnetic layer with a fixed magnetic moment vector fixed in a preferred direction both with and without an applied magnetic field, forming a material layer in contact with the pinned region, and forming a free ferromagnetic region adjacent the material layer, wherein the free ferromagnetic region includes a second ferromagnetic layer and has a shape anisotropy that provides a free magnetic moment vector of the second ferromagnetic layer with four stable positions to which the free magnetic moment vector is aligned while writing the MRAM cell, and wherein a first two stable positions of the four stable positions are oriented in opposite directions from each other along a first easy axis, and a second two stable positions of the four stable positions are oriented in opposite directions from each other along a second easy axis, wherein the first easy axis and the second easy axis are at nonzero angles relative to the preferred direction of the fixed magnetic moment vector.