MRAM production - Page 12

Dr. Daniel A. Baker, NVE's CEO commented in NVE's conference call: "On July 10 Freescale announced that the first commercial MRAM device was in volume production. This is an impressive accomplishment by a talented Freescale team, and we congratulate them. It is also gratifying for Dr. Jim Daughton, our founder and an MRAM pioneer who made many inventions in the field and had a vision for MRAM...."

"We are proud NVE's role in MRAM's development and we look forward to a bright future. Based on a preliminary analysis, we believe Freescale's MRAM comes within the scope of claims in a number of NVE patents. We hope to negotiate a mutually beneficial agreement with Freescale to give them access to NVE intellectual property without having to resort to litigation. As we have said before, we cannot predict the possible timing of agreements, but we are confident of the strength of NVE's MRAM inventions and patent portfolio."

Freescale started shipping of the world's of its 4 Mbit MRAM chip. The MR2A16A is now entering commercial production, with small-volume orders priced at $25 per chip.

The commercial production of Freescale's MRAM chips is a great breakthough, and it follows two years of product sampling. The read/write speed of these chips is 35 ns, and they are based on a 0.18-micro process. The cell size of the 4Mbit chip is 1.26 square micron. 

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has been chasing a breakthrough memory technology for many years. It's called MRAM, or magnetic random-access memory, and some experts say the technology has the potential to combine the density of conventional computer memory, or DRAM; the speed of SRAM, or static random-access memory; and the nonvolatility of flash. Freescale may be nearing a significant milestone with MRAM. Analyst Doug Freedman with American Technology Research reported last week that the chip maker had just completed an extensive qualification process for MRAM, which indicates it could be on the verge of making commercial chips with the process.
"This could be a big market opportunity," Freedman wrote. Freescale says it will make an announcement on MRAM in the next few weeks

This story appeared in Statesman, but it's no longer available.

Honeywell International Inc. has posted a data sheet for a 1-Mbit radiation-hard magnetic RAM to its website in the form of a "pdf" file. A source said the Honeywell memory is not a prototype or sample, but a commercial product. However, the specification sheet is labeled "advanced information".

The Honeywell 1-Mbit MRAM, organized as 64K by 16-bits, is fabricated in Honeywell's radiation-hardened 150-nanometer silicon-on-insulator manufacturing process technology, and is designed for use in low-voltage systems operating in radiation environments. The MRAM operates over the full military temperature range and is operated with 3.3-V and 1.8-V power supplies, according to the specification sheet.

Despite sampling MRAM, and 4 validating customers (out of 7 who got shipped MRAM samples), Cypress wants to sell its MRAM subsidiary.

"The second phase of our MRAM plan was to create a family of high-density MRAMs, ranging from four to 64 megabits in density. This segment of the MRAM market is much larger than the battery-backup SRAM market, partly because it offers the potential to take market share from the multibillion-dollar standard SRAM market, if the MRAM bit cost can be reduced to parity with the SRAM bit cost. Our battery-backup MRAM cell utilizes three transistors and two magnetic tunnel junctions (3T-2MTJ) per bit. In higher-density MRAMs, economic viability can be achieved only by switching to the simpler and denser 1T-1MTJ cell. The 1T-1MTJ cell is more difficult to design and manufacture than the 3T-2MTJ cell, which was invented at Cypress to solve the design and manufacturing problems that have prevented the commercialization of MRAM, despite over a decade of work by some of the world's most prominent semiconductor companies.

NVE Corporation today confirmed that MRAM alpha samples recently announced by Cypress Semiconductor Corporation are covered by NVE's technology agreement with Cypress.

MRAM is a revolutionary memory that uses electron spin to store data. On January 27, 2005 Cypress announced it had provided fully functional 256- kilobit alpha samples.

Freescale Semiconductor Inc., the semiconductor company formed from Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, has cast its 4Mbit MRAM as a standard product and has been sampling the part to customers, according to the company.

Freescale expects to be in production with standard MRAM products in 2005, the spokesman added.

Freescale Semiconductor is now sampling its MRAM.