Qualcomm

Yole Developpement released a new emerging-memory market report in which they try to asses the future of the memory market. Yose says that Phase-change memory (PCM) is pretty much dead, and the two main emerging memory technologies are MRAM and Resistive random Access Memory (ReRAM or RRAM).

While RRAM is very promising in the near future, with support from Micron (they plan to release RRAM chips in 2015) and Panasonic while other players are expected to react quickly. RRAM and STT-MRAM will compete in 2015-2016 in some standalone markets (such as embedded MCU, wearables and smart cards and the storage class memory for enterprise storage which will be the biggest market), and it's not clear yet which technology will be the most popular.

GlobalFoundries announced it is joining Qualcomm and Imec (and other companies) in their joint development effort to advance STT-MRAM technology. GlobalFoundries is the first IC maker to join imec's R&D program on emerging memory technologies. Imec says that they now have the complete infrastructure necessary for STT-MRAM R&D.

Imec and the other members aim to explore the potential of STT-MRAM, including performance below 1ns and scalability beyond 10nm for embedded and standalone applications.

Qualcomm and Belgium's Imec research center announced an extended collaboration agreement to accelerate scaling technologies for logic and memory devices, and Qualcomm will become a core partner of imec. This new agreement involves CMOS research and a new MRAM program.

We already know that Qualcomm is involved with MRAM research, but this is the first official announcement. Back in November 2012 Imec announced STT-MRAM collaboration with Tokyo Electron and Canon Anelva.

Back in June 2010 We learned that Qualcomm is developing MRAM technologies. Now Qualcomm's QTI Advanced Memory Team posted a job opening that details a mobile STT-MRAM lead technologist - that will lead the development of next-generation mobile SOC memory subsystems that integrate Perpendicular STT-MRAM.

Avalanche Technology announced that it has raised $30 million from existing investors (Vulcan Capital, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures) and also from a new investor, VTB capital. Avalanche hopes that this investment will enable them to bring the first products into the market.

Avalanche will produce STT-MRAM chips based on their proprietary SPMEM (Spin Programmable Memory) technology. SPMEM uses a revolutionary spin current and voltage switching technology that enables "lower write current, smaller cell size and excellent scalability". The first products will use a 65 nm process, but the company says that their technology is scalable to 10 nm or even less.

According to a recent EEtimes article, Qualcomm is actively researching MRAM:

"The company also hopes to jumpstart--and generate some new business--for its embryonic efforts in 3-D chips, augmented reality, MRAM, peer-to-peer and other newfangled technologies"