Patents - Page 3

MagSil has been working on MRAM since 2004, but we had very little information about the company till now (except for a PR from 2009 in which they said they'll soon reach full-scale commercialization). Today they have finally revealed more information. They are developing MRAM based on Magnetic Recording (iMR) cell architecture, based on a traditional magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) scheme.

The company hopes to start making a standalone 1Mb MRAM device (based on 130- and 90-nm processes) "pretty soon". They also have plans for a 64Mb chip.

The technology was originally developed by MIT and exclusively licensed to Magsil. They have filed several suits against companies over hard disk drive components using tunneling magnetoresistive (TMR) technology and have reached settlements with Western Digital, Seagate, SAW Magnetics and Headway Technologies. Litigation is still ongoing with Hitachi and Shenzen ExcelStor technology.

NVE Corporation was granted a new MRAM patent number 7,715,228, titled Cross-Point Magnetoresistive Memory.

The invention was made with U.S. Government support under a Missile Defense Agency contract and assigned to NVE. The U.S. Government has certain rights in the invention.

Spingate is a new US-based fabless company focusing on development, licensing and manufacturing of solid state memory, specifically, perpendicular MRAM.

We have talked to Dr. Alex Shukh, Spingate's co-founder, CTO and CEO. Alex explains that they have decided to focus on perpendicular MRAM because according to their estimates it does not suffer from several fundamental issues of its longitudinal (in-plane) analogue.

However, to be successful with p-MRAM development, Spingate needs to solve several serious problems, such as, a reduction of energy consumption during writing, development of new magnetic materials with perpendicular anisotropy for storage and reference layers exhibiting high GMR, etc.

Spingate's IP portfolio already includes one granted and several pending patents on p-MRAM, which covers multi-bit cell, 3D-memory designs, etc. The proposed solutions should close existing cell density gap between MRAM and Flash since 2D-Flash won't be able to compete with 3D-MRAM. Spingate are currently working on cell design development and optimization, and is looking for investors.

Crocus Technology announced two new patent grants by the US Patent and Trademark Office and the French Institut National de la Propriete Industrielle (INPI).

The new patents cover use in specialized memory chips known as Content Addressable Memories (CAM), opening the way to denser, faster and less power-hungry CAM, as well as innovative developments in the physics, materials, and manufacturing of MRAM chips with high data stability.  Commercialization of these technologies holds the promise of low cost, advanced technology MRAM to be used in applications ranging from mobile phones and disk drives to personal computers and network routers.

NVE Corporation was granted a patent  today relating to tamper detection and protection using magnetoresistive sensing memory storage. The patent is number 7,468,664 and titled "Enclosure tamper detection and protection."

Magnetoresistive memory, commonly known as MRAM, is an integrated-circuit memory which uses electron spin to store data.

The grant brings NVE's U.S. patent total to 50.

We've been approached by "VCPartners" who have an MRAM related invention and are looking to sell it or get funding. The invention is titled "HIGH SPEED MAGNETIC RANDOM ACCESS ELECTRONICALLY CONTROLLED MEMORY" and here's their abstract:

There is presented the principally new magnetic core memory device (hereinafter MD) with use of new principle of memory control, which allows to create fully featured high-speed operative memory with random access on magnetic elements with several unique characteristics.
Feasibility and efficiency of the technology is proved experimentally. We have the working model of MD according to the invention. The invention exists in form of “know-now” and has no patent protection. We want to commercialize the invention together with interested companies or to sell it.

NVE Corporation has been notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of the expected grant today of two patents relating to spintronics.

The first patent is number 7,390,584 and titled "Spin dependent tunneling devices having reduced topological coupling." Spin-dependent tunnel junctions, also known as magnetic tunnel junctions or tunneling magnetic junctions, are spintronic structures that can form the heart of spintronic magnetoresistive random access memory technology, commonly known as MRAM.

The second patent is number 7,391,091 and titled "Magnetic particle flow detector," and is related to spintronic biosensor technology, which could be used in laboratory-on-a-chip systems.

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.

NVE Corporation announced today that it has been notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of the expected grant of a patent relating to magnetothermal Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM).

NVE has been notified that the patent, titled "Magnetic Memory Layers Thermal Pulse Transitions," will issue today. The patent is number 7,266,013 and covers inventions by Dr. James M. Daughton and Dr. Arthur V. Pohm. The grant is in addition to similarly-titled patent numbers 7,177,178 and 7,023,723.

MRAM is an integrated-circuit memory which is fabricated with nanotechnology and which uses electron spin to store data. MRAM may have the potential to combine many of the best attributes of different types of semiconductor memories.

Magnetothermal MRAM is a next-generation MRAM technology that uses a combination of ultra-fast magnetic fields and heat pulses, both from electrical current, to reduce the energy required to write data and allow reduction of the memory cell size while maintaining thermal stability.

NVE announced today that it has been notified by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of the expected grant of a patent relating to magneto-thermal and spin-momentum transfer MRAM inventions.

NVE has been notified that the patent, titled `Thermomagnetically Assisted Spin-Momentum-Transfer Switching Memory' will be issued today. The patent is number 7,230,844 and is the grant of a patent under the application published by the USPTO as number 2006-0077707.

Magnetothermal MRAM uses a combination of ultra-fast magnetic fields and heat pulses, both from electrical current. Spin-momentum transfer is a method of changing the spin of storage electrons directly with an electrical current rather than an induced magnetic field. Both technologies may have the potential to reduce the energy required to write data and allow reduction of the memory cell size while maintaining thermal stability.

The grant brings NVE's U.S. patent total to 42. The company has more than 100 patents worldwide issued, pending, or licensed from others.