Patent ID: 7738286

Claim:
A method of operating a magnetic memory device, the magnetic memory device comprising first and second leads, a magnetoresistive multilayer structure arranged between said leads, said multilayer structure exhibiting a first, relatively high resistance state and a second, relatively low resistance state, said multilayer structure including a ferromagnetic layer having a magnetic hard axis and a magnetic easy axis, and said multilayer structure being switchable between said first and second states, and a magnetic field source for controllably applying a magnetic field along the magnetic hard axis in the ferromagnetic layer independently of current flow through the multilayer structure for assisting switching of the multilayer structure between said first and second states, said method comprising: turning on a magnetic field along the magnetic hard axis in the ferromagnetic layer using the magnetic field source, the magnitude of magnetic field in the ferromagnetic layer being 0.1 to 0.2 of the magnitude of an anisotropy magnetic field of the ferromagnetic layer; and turning on a current through the magnetoresistance multilayer structure within 2 ns after turning on the magnetic field.