November 2005

Renesas and Grandis have agreed to collaborate on the development of 65 nm process MRAM employing spin torque transfer writing technology. Renesas Technology will start to ship microcomputers and SoC products incorporating 65 nm process STT-RAM(TM) in the near future.

"We are currently doing development work on MRAM technology employing high-speed and highly reliable conventional magnetic field data writing technology. We intend to use this technology in products such as microcomputers and SoC devices with on-chip memory," said Tadashi Nishimura, Deputy Executive General Manager of the Production and Technology Unit at Renesas Technology Corp. "Nevertheless, in view of factors such as the need to reduce writing instability and lower current requirements, we feel that spin torque transfer is a more appropriate technology for future MRAM produced using ultra-fine processes. Grandis has world-class spin torque transfer technology. We are confident that by fusing their technology with our production processes we will be able to develop a universal memory that combines high performance and excellent reliability."

A non-volatile memory technology which is denser, faster and more cost-effective than conventional flash memory technology is closer to production, due to the continued efforts of Freescale Semiconductor to optimize the properties of silicon nanocrystals. Freescale has manufactured the world's first 24-megabit (Mbit) memory array based on silicon nanocrystals, a major step toward replacing conventional floating gate-based flash memories.
The 24-Mbit memory array technology was manufactured at Freescale's Austin Technology & Manufacturing Center using 90-nanometer (nm) CMOS bulk technology. The production of a working 24-Mbit memory device requires that silicon nanocrystals be deposited with excellent uniformity and integration approaches that keep the nanocrystal properties intact during subsequent processing. In successfully achieving this, Freescale has overcome major challenges to introducing this technology into production.
Silicon nanocrystal memories are part of an advanced class of memory technologies called thin-film storage. They are more scaleable than conventional floating gate-based flash technology, as their tunnel oxide thickness can be reduced without impacting data retention. The charge is stored on isolated nanocrystals and is lost only from those few nanocrystals that align with defects in the tunnel oxide - while the same defects would result in significant charge loss from a conventional floating gate. A thinner tunnel oxide permits lower-voltage operation, substantially reducing the memory module area needed to generate the bit-cell programming voltages, and allowing for significant wafer processing simplifications and manufacturing cost reductions. The combination of higher bit density and reduced cost translates to lower cost per bit to embed silicon nanocrystal memories. Freescale expects significant reductions in cost per bit of silicon nanocrystal thin-film storage memories.

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 For future technologies Samsung is also working on new technologies such as phase-change random access memory (RAM), magnetic RAM, ferroelectric-RAM.

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

NVE has been notified that the patent, titled "Thermally Operated Switch Control Memory Cell," will be issued today. The patent is number 6,963,098 and is the grant of a patent under the application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as number 2005-0002267.