January 2006

This report covers the markets for FRAM, MRAM, ovonic memory, nanotube memory, molecular memory, polymer memory, holographic memory, MEMS-based memory systems and other memory technologies likely to be commercialized in the next decade.
The report identifies and quantifies the opportunities presented by these technologies and the timeframes in which they will emerge. The current state of the market for each of these technologies is identified – are they in R&D, sampling, pilot production, full-scale production? – as are the markets for these products are to be found. The report discusses which kinds of end product would use each of these technologies and in what context – do they replace DRAM, SRAM, Flash, disk storage or some combination of these? Will they create entirely new products?
The role of key semiconductor companies and OEMs is also discussed, including the progress of some of the smaller firms active in this space. Particular attention is paid to how many of the competing nanomemory solutions can succeed and which ones they are most likely to be.

Product sales for the quarter increased 56% over the prior year to $1.74 million from $1.12 million. Total revenue, consisting of product sales and contract research and development revenue, increased 2% to $2.61 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2006 compared to $2.56 million in the prior-year quarter. Income before taxes for the quarter was $614,664 or $0.13 per diluted share, compared to $375,172 or $0.08 per diluted share for the prior-year quarter. After the effect of a provision for income taxes of $213,279, net income for the third quarter of fiscal 2006 was $401,385 or $0.09 per diluted share, compared to $375,172 or $0.08 per diluted share in the third quarter of fiscal 2005.

By utilising magnetic random-access memory (MRAM), computers would retain their data during power loss and hard drives the size of a coin could store over 100 films.
The current challenge, however, is the design of a fast, reliable and inexpensive way to build stable and densely packed magnetic memory cells.
A team of researchers at The Johns Hopkins University, writing in the current issue of Physical Review Letters, has come up with one possible answer: tiny, irregularly shaped cobalt or nickel rings that can serve as memory cells.
These "nanorings" can store a great quantity of information. They are also immune to the problem of "stray" magnetic fields, which are fields that "leak" from other kinds of magnets and can interfere with magnets next to them.
"It's the asymmetrical design that's the breakthrough, but we are also very excited about the fast, efficient and inexpensive method we came up with for making them," said paper co-author Frank Q. Zhu, a doctoral candidate in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins.
The nanorings are extremely small, with a diameter of about 100 nanometres. A single strand of human hair can hold 1 million rings of this size, Zhu says.
The asymmetrical design allows more of the nanorings to end up in a so-called "vortex state," meaning they have no stray field at all. With no stray field to contend with, Zhu's team's nanorings can be packed together extremely densely. As a result, the amount of information that can be stored in a given area is greatly increased.

Researchers at IBM and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology recently confirmed theoretical predictions made four years earlier by Butler and his colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Tulane University.

As lead author of the paper published in Physical Review, Butler performed computer calculations for a previously unknown electronic structure that incorporates multi atom-sized layers of iron and magnesium oxide, with an insulating barrier in between.

The discoveries have renewed excitement in the mad dash among manufacturers to develop a new type of magnetic memory, called MRAM, that many believe will one day replace DRAM as the computer industry's standard memory.

"There's a lot of excitement, but there is still not a product out there you can buy. A technology that is beautiful to the scientist does not always make it to the market," he said. Electronics manufacturers are banking that it will. Thanks in part to Butler's predictions, some of the industry's leading companies have signed on as sponsors of UA's MINT center. Among them are IBM, Seagate, Fujitsu, Sony, Hitachi-Maxell, Canon Anelva, and Toshiba.

Hideo Fujiwara, a research scientist and adjunct professor at MINT involved in the MRAM project, worked at Hitachi for 21 years before moving to its subsidiary, Hitachi-Maxell. He said the recent experiments confirming Butler's predictions have created quite a buzz in the industry.