Renesas

Renesas Electronics Corporation introduced two new MCUs, the RA8M2 and RA8D2, both based on 1 Ghz Arm Cortex-M85 processors. Renesas says that these new MCUs deliver an unmatched 7300 Coremarks of raw compute performance, the industry benchmark for MCUs. The optional Cortex-M33 processor enables efficient system partitioning and task segregation.

Both the RA8D2 and RA8M2 offer embedded 1MB high-speed MRAM and 2MB SRAM. SIP options with 4 or 8 MB of external flash in a single package are also available for more demanding applications. 

Renesas Electronics launched a new high-end motor control MCU, the RA8T2. It is based on a 1 GHz Arm Cortex-M85 processor with an optional 250 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 processor, to deliver a high performance level to address real-time control of high-end motors in industrial equipment, robots, and other systems.

The RA8T2 has an integrated 1MB high-speed MRAM, in addition to 2MB SRAM (including 256KB TCM for the Cortex-M85 and 128KB TCM for the M33). The RA8T2 Group MCUs are available now, along with the FSP software.

Renesas is introducing a new microcontroller (MCU) group, called the RA8P1, that is designed for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and real-time analytics applications. The devices, produced at TSMC's 22 nm ulta-low leakage process, target edge and endpoint AI applications, supporting convolutional and recurrent neural networks with up to 256 MACs per cycle

The RA8P1 combines a 1GHz Arm Cortex-M85 core, a 250MHz Cortex-M33 core, and an Arm Ethos-U55 Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The MCU use a 1 Mb on-chip embedded MRAM memory.

Renesas Electronics announced that it has developed circuit technologies for embedded STT-MRAM that reduces the energy and voltage of the memory write operation. 

Renesas produced a 22-nm MCU test chip, that includes a 10.8 Mbit embedded MRAM memory cell array. It achieves a random read access frequency of over 200 MHz and a write throughput of 10.4-megabytes-per-second (MB/s).

Renesas Electronics announced that it has developed two new technologies that reduce the energy and voltage application time for the write operation of STT-MRAM chips.

On a 20-Mbit test chip with embedded MRAM memory cell array in a 16 nm FinFET logic process, a 72% reduction in write energy and a 50% reduction in the voltage application time were confirmed.

According to Nikkei, over 20 Japanese and US companies have teamed up to develop MRAM technologies, in particular a new mass production method. Participants in this ambitious project include Tokyo Electron (who's merging with Applied Materials), Renasas, Hitachi and Shin-Etsu Chemical from Japan and Micron Technology from the US.

Japan's Tohoku University, a leader in Spintronics and MRAM research, will also join the project. The companies will finance several dozens researchers at the University. They plan to start development in February 2014, and continue to seek more companies from the US and Europe to join. The aim is to complete materials and processes development by 2017 and start mass production by 2018.

Samsung announced that it has acquired Grandis, developer of STT-MRAM technology. We do not have any financial details yet, but Grandis' CEO Frahad Tabrizi said that this deal serves as a& "very successful exit" for Grandis's investors. Grandis raised $15 million since it was founded in 2002 (and also raised about the same from DARPA grants including a $8.6 million second-phase project granted in June 2010).

Grandis licensed their technology to several companies. We know that Hynix licensed it in 2008. The company was also collaborating with Renesas technologies. Hynix and Grandis were developing a compact in-plane MTJ based STT-RAM device that uses modified DRAM processes at 54nm.

Renesas has released a presentation about their flash memory products, which also includes one slide about their  flash memory roadmap. The roadmap includes Floating Gate HND (Hyper New DINOR), MONOS (metal Oxide Nitride Oxide Silicon) and also MRAM.

They plan to have 100 to 150Mhz MRAM at 90nm at around 2010, and 200Mhz MRAM at 65nm at around 2012. They say MRAM is the next-generation RAM, a breakthrough beyond the limit of flash memory.

Renesas plans to start shipping MRAM samples in 2009. These products will be based on 90nm tech. Last month they said they will ship products in 2010. So samples in 2009, products in 2010. Renesas will also manufacture microcontrollers with embedded MRAM, also to be sold in 2010.

Renesas already has made 130nm MRAM, but they want to make it cheaper and with better power consumption, and this is why they're going to make then at 90nm. 

Renesas has announced the new R&D roadmap. The company plans to raise its development efficiency and provide high added-value products by reinforcing its design ability. The roadmap is primarily geared towards hardware IP. Memory IP is in there, including flash memory and MRAM.

Read more here (TechOn)