STT-MRAM - Page 21

Grandis today announced their 300-millimeter magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) fabrication facility (Fab) in the US dedicated to STT-RAM. Grandis is now able to incorporate STT-RAM into its customers' most advanced semiconductor processes on 300mm wafers.

Grandis' MTJ Fab can now handle both 200mm and 300mm customer wafers. In a multi-million dollar investment, key equipment for depositing and annealing MTJ memory elements, the critical building blocks for STT-RAM, was purchased. Since Grandis' new licensees are often not familiar with fabricating MTJ elements and do not possess the associated fab equipment and know-how, the MTJ Fab's main purpose is enable licensees to incorporate Grandis' MTJ elements into their CMOS wafers at the earliest possible stage in the development cycle, thereby accelerating their STT-RAM development and reducing their time-to- market. The MTJ Fab also enables Grandis to conduct leading-edge R&D on new magnetic materials and MTJ elements targeted at further reducing STT-RAM write current and die size. As these new materials, structures and processes are proven, they are transferred immediately to licensees' production fabs.

IBM is providing a preview of its new STT-MRAM technology. They have produced a 4-Kbit test device, using a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) with MgO tunnel barriers. They say that the new technology could enable a 64-Mbit MRAM (90nm). STT-RAM also uses less power than toggle MRAM. The STT-RAM is part of the joint-research with TDK, announced in 2007.

Saied Tehrani, EverSpin's CEO, says that "Toggle [MRAM] is in production today,'Spin torque is more of an R&D project for us and a number of other companies.''. Earlier today EverSpin released a couple of new MRAM products.

Seagate's CEO, Bill Watkins, said that the company is investing "a lot of money" into what the company thinks will be the next-generation memory technology after MLC.

Bill says that the technology "would be something like a spin around magnetic RAM, it could be a phase shift type of process. I won't go into [details] because it's kind of proprietary". The company is looking at several technology, and says it will not develop flash products as it "doesn't pay".

Grandis announced that it has been awarded $6.0 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the initial phase of research to develop spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM) chips (for the 45 nm technology node and beyond). The total value of the effort, if all phases of the development program are completed, could be up to $14.7 million over four years.

Samsung and Hynix are to launch their STT-RAM JV in September (after having announced their intentions in January 2008).

The companies said they will engage in joint research and development (R&D) of spin-torque-transfer magnetic-random-access-memory (STT-MRAM) chips, and become the industry standard-setters for the next generation 450mm wafer fab market.

Toshiba is still working on 1Gb MRAM chips, and it's "almost ready". They are using Spin-RAM (STT-RAM), like IBM.

Toshiba's projections sees MRAM taking over DRAM in 2015.

Read more here (TechRadar)

Hynix Semiconductor and Grandis have signed a license agreement for memory products involving Grandis' patents and intellectual property (IP) in the spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM) arena.

Hynix and Grandis have also entered into a collaborative agreement to jointly integrate Grandis' STT-RAM technology into Hynix' future memory products. Technical teams from both companies will work together to implement Grandis' STT-RAM technology, including magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) materials and structures.

New York University and Allied Minds, a seed investment corporation specializing in early stage university business ventures, have teamed to establish Spin Transfer Technologies, LLC (STT), a new start-up company, to develop and commercialize a novel, more efficient form of computer memory, STT-MRAM.

New York University researchers have developed a new form of magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), which will provide non-volatile storage of frequently updated, critical data, and instant-on convenience. The patented MRAM technology uses spin transfer to rapidly change the magnetic orientation of nanometer scale magnets.

"Our MRAM technology has the potential to provide significant advantages over competing approaches and may enable our devices to have higher write speeds, lower power consumption and be scalable to next generation process technologies," says Professor Andrew Kent of New York University.

"MRAM is expected to be the dominant next-generation memory technology. We're very pleased to be working with STT and New York University," says Allied Minds COO Marc Eichenberger.