January 2009

Researchers in France and the US have lowered the current required for spin transfer down to just 120 microamps at room temperature for a device that measures 45 nm across.

Spin transfer is when the spin angular momentum of charge carriers (usually electrons) in a material is transferred from one place to another. In the MRAM industry, Spin Transfer might help to significantly reduce power consumption, but it draws a large current. But the new technique can help with that. 

Stéphane Mangin from Nancy University and colleagues have fabricated 45 nm diameter spin valves based on cobalt-nickel multilayer elements. Because these devices exhibit perpendicular anisotropy, they are thermally stable and require currents as low as 120 microamps for spin transfer switching without any applied magnetic field.

MagSil today announced that they will reach full scale commercialization of their MRAM technology during 2009.
MagSil are developing MRAM for embedded devices (e-MRAM). MagSil's technology relies only on using industry proven equipment, processes and materials.
They will also require more funding (they are VC backed, and raised money last at 2007). 

NVE Corporation announced today financial results for the quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2008.  Total revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 increased 23% to $5.88 million from $4.77 million in the prior-year quarter. The revenue increase was due to an 8% increase in product sales and a 150% increase in contract research and development revenue. Net income for the third quarter of fiscal 2009 increased 45% to $2.47 million.

NVE reported a strong growth in contract R&D. In the conference call, Daniel Baker (company's CEO) said - "Most of the contracts that we're working on right now are related to anti-tamper MRAM".

The company also announced today that its Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to $2.5 million of the company’s common stock from time to time in open market, block, or privately negotiated transactions. 

NEC has announced it managed to make a 1-bit Magnetic Flip Flop (MFF, as they like to call it). Unlike existing flip-flops, it does not need power to retain the value.
NEC suggests using such flip-flops instead of regular ones, and using MRAM instead of SRAM and you can make a system on a chip that does not need power to store data. MRAM is better than FLASH, says NEC, because of the unlimited write cycles.
NEC's MFF opereates at 1.2V or less, like regular flip-flops. The clock speed can be up to 3.5GHz.