502

IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 24, NO. 7, JULY 2014

Wireless Spintronics Modulation With a Spin

Torque Nano-Oscillator (STNO) Array
Inn-Yeal Oh, Seung-Young Park, Doo-Hyung Kang, Member, IEEE, and Chul Soon Park, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThis letter presents a spin RF-direct modulation using

a frequency division multiplex (FDM) with a spin torque nano-oscillator (STNO) array. For the proposed modulation, two STNO
are bonded at each branch of a T-junction on a PCB, where a high
pass filter (HPF) and a low pass filter (LPF) are connected on each
branch of the T-junction to transmit the modulated signal into one
antenna. Each STNO modulates by on-off keying (OOK) with digital data directly after setting on the separation of channels for two
STNOs into 700 MHz, one STNO at 3.5 GHz frequency and the
other at 4.2 GHz, with consideration of the minimum sensitivity
and interference related with isolation between channels. A data
rate of up to 400 Kbps is obtained at a distance of 10 mm, and the
dc power consumption is 3 mW per STNO, including logic circuit
operation. The PCB size is as small as 28 27 mm, including the
4.2 2.1 mm STNO array.
Index TermsDual channel, frequency, modulation, on-off
keying (OOK), spintronics oscillator, spin torque nano-oscillator
(STNO) array.

I. INTRODUCTION

T has been reported that spintronics oscillators can feasibly

be used for wireless communication by using frequency
shift keying (FSK) modulation [1]. Because a spintronics oscillator has characteristics of wideband operation, as well as fast
rising and falling time when the signal is settling, it can transmit
at high data rates with multiband operation in the air. Moreover,
devices applying a spin torque nano-oscillator (STNO) can be
realized with a small form factor because the STNO can be fabricated with hundreds of nanometer size [2].
However, spintronics oscillators still have a low signal level
(e.g.,
dBm measured in our fabricated STNO) and poor
linewidth (e.g., 130 MHz measured in our fabricated STNO,
meaning the phase noise is
dBc at an offset of 130 MHz),
thus impeding their use as a substitute for LC oscillators for
wireless communication. Another difficulty for communication
applications is nonlinearity of the output signal when frequency
modulation is applied in the spintronics oscillator [3]. The current flowing through a STNO not only changes the amplitude of
Manuscript received November 20, 2013; accepted April 06, 2014. Date of
publication June 06, 2014; date of current version June 20, 2014. This work was
supported by the Pioneer Research Center Program through a NRF of Korea
grant funded by the Korean government under Grant 2014-004057.
I. Y. Oh, D. H. Kang, and C. S. Park are with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST),
Daejeon 305-701, Korea (e-mail: iyoh@kaist.ac.kr).
S. Y. Park is with the Quantum Material Research Team, Korea Basic Science
Institute (KBSI), Daejeon 305-333, Korea.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2014.2316494

Fig. 1. The concept of a spin RF-direct FDM modulation with a STNO array.

the oscillation signal but also shifts its frequency. This presents
challenges for wireless communication with an STNO at an assigned frequency.
In this letter, we describe a new communication concept
that can be adapted to STNO characteristics. By exploiting
nanotechnology, spintronics devices can be easily realized
in a STNO array structure, and each STNO can directly be
assigned to many RF frequencies. First, data are carried at each
frequency of each STNO. Many channels can be assigned due
to wideband operation. Second, we select OOK modulation,
which is not only a non-coherent communication method for
wireless transmission but also allows wireless transmission of
data via air without changing frequency, even in the case of
STNO non-linearity phenomena.
We then propose a spin RF-direct FDM modulation concept
that is adaptable to STNO. It facilitates STNO communication
at higher data rates according to the number of STNOs within an
array, because OOK is executed with each frequency assigned
at each STNO with the targeted frequency.
We targeted near field communication with low power consumption by not amplifying the signal at the low power level of
the STNO. Fig. 1 schematically shows a spin RF-direct FDM
modulation concept realized with a STNO array.
Fig. 1 illustrates the concept of spin RF-direct FDM with a
STNO array. Here, Dn, In, and fn are nth data, current, and
frequency; STNOn is the nth STNO and MNn is a matching
network for the nth frequency at the nth STNO. Wideband MN
denotes a wideband matching network and Ant is antenna.
II. DESIGN OF SPIN MODULATOR
In order to realize a spin RF-direct FDM modulation, we executed experiments with two STNOs to check whether wireless
communication can be realized with spintronics oscillation, and

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OH et al.: WIRELESS SPINTRONICS MODULATION WITH A SPIN TORQUE NANO-OSCILLATOR (STNO) ARRAY

503

Fig. 2. STNO oscillation characteristics depending on magnetic fields.

also assessed whether the spin RF-direct FDM modulation concept was practicable.
Fig. 2 shows the STNO oscillation characteristics of frequency depending on the magnetic field. The signal level, at the
offset point corresponding with the channel separation between
two channels from each carrier frequency, should be selected
to be below the minimum sensitivity,
dBm, considering
the linewidth and signal level. We thus selected frequencies
of 3.5 and 4.2 GHz with 700 MHz channel separation for two
STNOs for the channel separation to be at least three times the
linewidth.

Fig. 3. Measurement results of the T-junction matching circuit.

A. Matching the Circuit on Each STNO

A T-junction structure is applied to the PCB for assigning the
frequencies generated on two STNOs to transmit a signal in the
air through a single antenna.
We designed matching networks with a LPF circuit for a
3.5 GHz STNO, and a HPF circuit for a 4.2 GHz STNO to provide operation without interference with each other, and then
each output port of the matching circuit is connected with other
ports of the T-junction, taking into consideration an antenna that
will be situated at the center port of the T-junction. The STNO
has the anti-parallel magnetic resistance (MR) of 80 , where
the STNO provides good signal oscillation [4].
A HPF circuit is applied to obtain higher isolation at 3.5 GHz
as well as low insertion loss at 4.2 GHz, and vice versa in the
LPF circuit. Higher isolation and low insertion loss cause all of
the signal to flow into the antenna port of the T-junction without
signal loss. We targeted insertion loss approaching 3 dB, and
signal isolation below
dB in the T-junction. Fig. 3 shows
the measurement results of the T-junction. The antenna is located immediately after the T-junction and it has a band from
3.1 to 5.2 GHz, and 2 dBi gain. The power level transmitted
through the antenna is
dBm at 4.5 GHz with consideration of the T-junction loss and antenna gain, and the thermal
noise level is
dBm in the 130 MHz STNO linewidth. The
SNR in the transmitter is thus 20.4 dB. The transmission margin
is 11.4 dB, because the required SNR is 9.0 dB for the
bit
error rate (BER) in the OOK system. This margin corresponds
to supporting transmission up to 27 mm distance in the air in the
condition of using a receiver having no noise or gain.
B. Modulation and Biasing on STNOs
An oscillation signal is generated by the current flowing
through the STNO. Current can be supplied via a current mirror
circuit as a bias for a stable current supply.

Fig. 4. Fabricated PCB board with soldered components with a STNO array.

The current mirror circuit is designed with two PMOS. The

ratio of the transistor width for the current mirror circuit must
be set at 1:8 to reduce the leakage current to 1/8th of the current
flowing through the STNO.
The supplied current drives the STNO to generate oscillation. We then modulate the STNO with the OOK method, where
the current supplied from the current mirror circuit is switched
on/off. This function is executed through a NMOS switch that
enables operation of the current mirror circuit.
III. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
Fig. 4 shows the PCB board with soldered components together with STNOs structured in a 2 4 array for transmitting
multi-channel signals to one antenna. We selected two out of the
8 STNOs and set the target frequency by controlling the magnitude of the magnetic field, the angle of the applied magnetic
field to the STNO, and the current quantity based on STNO operation [5]. We situated a RF switch between the T-junction and
the antenna to monitor the STNO output signal. The RF switch
is controlled by a dip switch.
To carry out the measurements, the fabricated PCB is placed
on a C-type magnetic closed circuit to apply a magnetic field
around the DUT. Constant current is applied to the electromagnet by a precision current source, and a fringing field is generated depending on the current quantity. The fabricated STNO
could change the frequency by only around 220 MHz according

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IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 24, NO. 7, JULY 2014

TABLE I
THE STNO PERFORMANCE COMPARISON WITH OTHER WORKS

range than that in [8], 5.5 times smaller power consumption than
that in [9], and much smaller size than that in [8], as shown in
Table I.
IV. CONCLUSION

to the current flow to the STNO from 1.0 to 2.5 mA in our fabricated STNO. Thus the fringing field is adjusted by the current
quantity, and the direction of the magnetic field is also changed
by manually making the C-type magnetic closed circuit rotate
for each STNO to be set to an assigned frequency of 3.5 and
4.2 GHz, respectively.
Under these measurement conditions, we tested the transmission operation on dual frequencies modulating OOK into one
antenna.
We designed a dual channel OOK receiver for verification
of the transmitted signal. The air loss is 5 dB in a distance of
10 mm, and the commercial demodulator sensitivity we tested
is
dBm. We obtained a communication margin of 14
and 16 dB, because the received signal level is
dBm and
dBm at the receiver with a system NF of 4.3 and 4.5 dB and
system gain of 15 and 17 dB at 3.5 and 4.5 GHz, respectively.
This demonstrates that the wireless technology of spintronics
modulation is feasible for use in wireless communication.
Although [1] reported that current clearly modulates pulse
repetition frequency (PRF) up to 5 MHz, in the experiments reported, in this letter the usable frequency of PRF is limited by
the bias delay driving current at the transmitter, and by a falling
time of 180 nsec and a rising time of 100 nsec for detection
at the receiver. This work is verified by using the LandauLifshitzGilbertSlonczewski (LLGS) equation for the STNO [6]
with a MATLAB tool, considering parallel MR of 50
and
anti-parallel MR of 80 , when 500 pF is added in the bias-T
for cancelling modulation noise.
A data rate of up to 200 kbps is obtained at each frequency
in the experiment results at a distance of 10 mm, and the power
consumption is under 3 mW per STNO at these measurement
conditions. It corresponds to an energy efficiency of 15 nJ/bit.
This result shows that a data rate up of up to 400 Kbps is acquired at the STNO array.
The 15 nJ/bit obtained from the acquired consumption result is not a remarkable achievement due to the use of commercial circuits supplied with 2 VDC; however, recent numerical simulations suggest that current densities may be reduced
to five orders of magnitude lower than the tested STNO [7]. If
nano-scaled CMOS and new spintronics technologies are applied, the size and power consumption of the wireless technology in this work could approach those of the core block, i.e.,
STNO. It is observed that 0.18 mW power consumption occurs
at one STNO. The core in this work has three times larger tuning

We demonstrated a new communication technique with spintronics technology. This is the first report of the wireless spintronics modulation with a STNO array. The obtained results
demonstrate the possibility of increasing data rates remarkably
by using a STNO array, which features a wide band range even
exceeding 100%, low dc consumption at the micro-watt level,
and nano-sized realization. However, many barriers must still
be surmounted. In view of modulation, each STNO has to be
designed with operation of a differenct frequency on the same
magnetic field in order to easily realize a spin RF-direct FDM
modulation at the STNO array. This has been accomplished by
the STNO employing wideband frequency variation according
to the dc bias current [10], or a different value or direction of
the anisotrophic field [11].
Nevertheless, the proposed scheme is expected to be competitively executed in near field communication (NFC) with high
speed communication, low power consumption, and small size
at relatively low cost.
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