Micromem Notes Foundry Milestone - Successful Magnetic Production Scaling

Micromem Technologies is pleased to announce a material progress update on our commercialization of our MRAM. Micromem and Global Communication Semiconductors, Inc. (GCS) have successfully patterned and processed our own magnetic yoke design. This is significant in that this production-level process produced an extremely clean magnetic storage element (below, less than 1/10th the width of a human hair) while at the same time starting a march down a path of memory size reductions and lower cost-per-bit. The scanning electron microscope image illustrates the superior quality of the GCS foundry and its team of engineers.

The process of establishing the function and scalability of the multi-bit MRAM has followed a sequence of first productizing the magnetic storage element (the “yoke”), followed by Hall Cross Sensor characterization, and finally integrated MRAM bit cell performance. With this very successful demonstration of the magnetic structure, Strategic Solutions has characterized the relative efficacy of two alternative methods: electroplating  ersus sputter deposition, as they relate to the ultimate manufacturing of MRAM product in a dense multi-bit array.

Similar data and a milestone for Hall Cross Sensors should be seen in November. A demonstration of a fully integrated MRAM storage cell is expected by year end. Micromem is in discussion with a major military-focused company that provides GaAs space-based platforms. Discussions are centered around the proposed MRAM architecture and how it will benefit their current product line in a dense memory array format.

Posted: Nov 02,2007 by Ron Mertens