August 2016

High-reliability aerospace component maker Cobham (formerly Aeroflex) says that its MRAM chips were used in the payload of the ExoMars program that will soon reach Mars (in October 2016).

ExoMars is a joint-endeavor between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). ExoMars 2016 is the first mission, that will consist of a Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and an entry, descent and landing demonstrator module (EDM) known as Schiaparelli. The main objectives of this mission are to search for evidence of methane and other trace atmospheric gases that could be signatures of active biological or geological processes on Mars.

Here at MRAM-Info we've been following the MRAM market for over 12 years. The MRAM market have seen its share of hypes and disillusionments, but it now seems that the market is actually accelerating, with memory makers such as IBM, Samsung and others stating that the time for MRAM is "near" and 256Mb and 1Gb chips entering the market.

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STT-MRAM is the second generation MRAM technology, and it seems that most companies are focused on STT-MRAM (rather than Toggle MRAM) in their MRAM development efforts. Check out our new article that gives an introduction to STT-MRAM and the current market status.

An interesting interview with Nobel Laureate (1998, Physics) Albert Fert regarding the future of spintronics, STT-MRAM, topological insulators and more:

Aupera Technologies launched the world's first M.2 storage module based on Everspin's recently announced 256Mb pMTJ ST-MRAM. The Aup-AXL-M128, will be used in Aupera's All Flash Array system as a hardware acceleration engine for specific applications that require low latency and high performance.

Aupera says the company is excited at the future potential of this ST-MRAM based module. The ST-MRAM delivers four orders of magnitude BER reduction and more than 30% less power while quadrupling the capacity to 128MB as compared to the previous generation M.2 MRAM module.

Everspin announced that it has started shipping samples based on its perpendicular magnetic tunnel junction (pMTJ) ST-MRAM. The first chip is the EMD3D256MB - a 256Mb DDR device. This is Everspin's 3rd-gen MRAM technology.

The pMTJ ST-MRAM offers improved performance, higher endurance, lower power, and better scalability compared to previous MRAM and ST-MRAM products. The company (together with GlobalFoundries) is now focused on the production ramp of the 256Mb MRAM and is working on a scaled-down 1Gb version.