Researchers from France's Universite Paris-Sud and the CEA institute say that the probabilistic nature of STT-MRAM devices can be used to create synapses-like neuro system. This can be used to create efficient devices that mimic the human's brain method of operation.
MRAM cells (or MTJs) store data using electrons magnetic spin. The technology uses stochastic switching, and so to be sure that a bit is set, you have to applying a current in the MTJ for a long enough time (to increase the probability of the spin changes).
In these new experiments, the researchers take advantage of the stochastic switching, and apply current for a short time. This is similar to the way a synapse work - it does not change its store information all the time, but it learns progressively. This effectively means that MTJs can be "trained" to learn new information.
The team now wants to fabricate circuits that use MTJs as synapses, and demonstrate how these can be used as neural nets.