August 2006

An article in Smartmoney about NVE's patents and the Freescale MRAM chip. They claim that Freescale do not use NVE's IP, and that NVE will not sign a licensing contract with them.
Please note the article's comments - a lot of people say that several claims in this article is not correct. They certainly are not in par with NVE's statements in the past. It will be interesting to see what will finally happen between those two companies.

Read more here

Interesting examination of Freescale's MRAM by SemiSerious.

MRAM will not replace DRAM because it is slower, therefore The "instant-on" computer is not around the corner, but MRAM can boot operating systems or other code faster than present-day NOR flash.
The bottom line may be evolution — not revolution as Freescale's new MRAM device seems most suited to critical military and space applications where MRAM has already been deployed at lower resolutions. MRAM is very likely to start to replace NV-SRAM since it must be cheaper to produce a more or less standard die in a standard package than to start adding batteries to the mix.

Micromem today announced that it has retained the services of Strategic Solutions, a California-based engineering firm specializing in "lab-to-fab" transitions, to continue Micromem's pursuit of commercializing its HCS MRAM technology.

The engineers at Strategic Solutions will work directly with Micromem's Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Cynthia Kuper, to road map Micromem's HCS MRAM and to fabricate the memory.

This road map provides specific information on what types of memory products HCS MRAM can replace and estimates the specific price points for given applications. Strategic Solutions also provides detailed specifications on the functioning of HCS MRAM as it scales and delivers discrete project plans and milestones for each step in the productization process.

Freescale Semiconductor’s MRAM cell is four times smaller than a six transistor SRAM cell, giving it a significant potential as a replacement for mid-range performance SRAM, according to Dr Saied Tehrani, director for MRAM technology at Freescale.

“The reason why our cell is small compared to other MRAM cells is because we use one transistor and one magnetic tunnel junction (MJT) and the MJT sits on the top of the transistor,” Tehrani told Electronics Weekly at the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando, Florida last week.
Freescale’s 4Mbit MRAM has an access time of 35ns for both the read and the write making it competitive with mid-range SRAM. It is positioned, and priced, to be a replacement for battery-backed SRAM.

It is not fast enough to compete with high-speed SRAM which has sub-10ns access times. "It can't replace Level One cache", said Tehrani.