Embedded MRAM

GlobalFoundries reported its Q1 2026 financial results, with $1.63 billion in revenues, and a net profit of $227 million. The company reported its design wins increased 50% over Q1 2025 - including automotive MRAM (and microLED) wins.

GF says that it is seeing strong momentum for auto-grade embedded MRAM capability on FDX, describing "industry-leading 100 MHz class access times" and endurance and reliability. The company reported that lead customers have taped out with the MRAM feature and cited growing engagement with tier-one suppliers including Bosch as it moves toward production.

Custom AI ASIC solutions provider SEMIFIVE, together with China-based AI semiconductor developer ICY Tech, announced the successful tape-out of its next-generation Edge AI SoC jointly developed utilizing Samsung Foundry's 8nm (8LPU) embedded MRAM technology. The two companies say that this is a significant milestone toward the first commercial deployment of 8nm eMRAM technology in Asia.

SEMIFIVE that by integrating eMRAM into its Edge AI accelerator, it aims to reinforce its technical leadership in the ultra-low-power, high-performance inference market. 

GlobalFoundries announced the availability of Auto Grade 1 ready embedded MRAM (eMRAM) technology on the company’s ultra-low power FDX platform. GF says that this is a key enhancement to its portfolio of non-volatile memory technologies and AutoPro platform of automotive-ready solutions.

The new FDX+AutoPro150 eMRAM technology delivers essential advantages over competitive industry grade memories, including proven endurance up to 500k cycles, sub-10 nanosecond read speed, and superior scalability for larger memory density. The technology is designed to address known magnetic field effects and qualified for reliable operation in harsh environments up to 150°C, enabling high-performance, system-on-chip (SoC) solutions that meet the demands of critical automotive applications.

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.

TSMC is launching its first design center in Europe, with a focus on memory technologies for automotive applications. The company announced that it will start developing 5nm MRAM technologies, to complement its 22-nm (in production), 16-nm (ready for customers verification) and 12-nm (already in development) technologies. 

Scaling MRAM technology to 5nm will be a significant step, required, according to TSMC, to implement AI automotive chips and technologies. The company will also develop 6 nm RRAM memory in the new design center.

US-based Carnegie Mellon University spinoff Efficient has signed a strategic partnership with GlobalFoundries to launch its low-power Fabric chip on GlobalFoundries' 22FDX low power silicon on insulator process. Efficient will adopt embedded MRAM in its chip, and expects to launch it (first samples) by the summer of 2025.

Efficient is an early stage company that raised over $16 million to develop the power-efficient Fabric processor, targeting edge applications such as machine learning-enabled extreme-edge machine vision, continuous audio intelligence and versatile sensory and signals intelligence.

GlobalFoundries has been offering eMRAM 22nm process solutions since 2017, based on Everspin's pMTJ technology and IP.

In 2019, Samsung Electronics announced that it has started to mass produce its first embedded MRAM devices, made using the company's 28 nm FD-SOI process. In 2021, Samsung announced it is working to scale down to 14 nm processes.

The company now says that it has finalized the development of its 14 nm eMRAM process, and will be read to mass produce it by the end of 2024. The company says that the 14 nm process achieve a 33% area scaling compared to its 28 nm process, and it also enables a 2.6x faster read cycle time. Samsung says that its eMRAM enables the smallest size 16MB memory die.