May 2012

Integral Solutions International (ISI) released today a new wafer-level analyzer for STT-MRAM characterization, the WLA-3000. They say that this is the world's first commercially available and fully integrated solution to address the needs of production level testing of STT-MRAM wafers.

The WLA-3000 includes proprietary magnets, pulse generator module, probecard interfaces, and measurement electronics that were all specifically developed by ISI. ISI says they already shipped several of these testers which have now been qualified for high volume production testing of STT-MRAM devices.

Buffalo (a Japanese storage expert) introduced a new line of SSDs that use MRAM cache (instead of the standard SDRAM). The MRAM chips are probably made by Everspin (as it is the only MRAM maker).

Buffalo says that MRAM is nonvolatlie and so this new cache technology provides increased tolerance to power loss.

Veeco produced a nice ad showing their NEXUS Ion Beam Deposition System. This tool is "ideal for MRAM applications" and can also be used for read/write heads used in hard disk drives:

Back in January we reported that NVE filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Everspin Technologies in the US. NVE claims that Everspin infringes three NVE MRAM patents. Today Everspin responded with a suit of their own, claiming that NVE infringed on two US patents related to GMR-based isolators, sensors, encoders and memory.