MRAM Manufacture

Integral Solutions International (ISI) announced a new 3-Axis Magnet Option for wafer-level testing. Combined with ISI's WLA5000 Tester, the 3D magnetic fields produced by this system can be used for characterization of MRAM devices in addition to 2D/3D Magnetic Sensors.

ISI says that for MRAM applications, the 3D Magnetic fields produced by ISI’s 3-Axis Magnet Option delivers solutions for both STT-MRAM and SOT-MRAM applications.

Hprobe, a developer of testing equipment for magnetic devices, announced a significant order from a tier-1 semiconductor manufacturer in Korea for a wafer-level magnetic tester.

Hprobe's IBEX platform is compatible with 200mm and 300mm automated wafer probers, and is dedicated to testing MRAM magnetic tunnel junctions, bit cells based on STT-MRAM, SOT-MRAM, and Voltage Controlled (VC-MRAM) technologies.

Hprobe, a developer of testing equipment for magnetic devices, announced a 'significant' order for a wafer-level magnetic tester (the company's IBEX tester) from a tier-1 semiconductor manufacturer.

The equipment will be used for research and development of magnetic materials and devices, which represents a very promising technology for MRAM chips and magnetic sensors. The IBEX platform is compatible with 200mm and 300mm automated wafer probers, and is dedicated to testing MRAM magnetic tunnel junctions, bit cells based on STT-MRAM, SOT-MRAM, and Voltage Controlled (VC-MRAM) technologies.

This is a sponsored post by Integral Solutions Int'l

MRAM is likely to be the most promising next-generation non-volatile memory technology today. Toggle MRAM and STT-MRAM are already entering the market, gaining market share in many applications. Next-generation MRAM technologies, such as SOT-MRAM could enable the replacement of even the fastest SRAM applications, with higher densities.

Source: Coughlin Associates, 2019

The MRAM production process has many stages, as device architecture is relatively complex, with a magnetic cell (frontplane) fabricated on top of a CMOS backplane. (use Figure 2 or Figure 3 from Coughlin). Measurement and characterization of devices are highly important, and the production of MRAM memories depend on measurement tools are are specialized for MRAM and STT-MRAM measurements.

Hprobe, a developer of testing equipment for magnetic devices, has raised more than 2 million euros from a group of international investors. The new funds will support Hprobe's spintronics device testing development - which include MRAM and TMR sensors.

The investment round was led by Germany-based High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), a public-private venture capital investment firm. Other investors include Taiwan ITRI's ITIC VC firm and TEL Venture Capital.

Applied Materials unveiled new high-volume manufacturing solutions for next-generation memories. The Endura platform integrates multiple materials engineering technologies along with on-board metrology to create new films and structures.

Applied’s new Endura Clover MRAM PVD platform is made up of nine unique wafer processing chambers all integrated in pristine, high-vacuum conditions. Applied says that this is the industry's first 300-millimeter MRAM system for high-volume manufacturing capable of individually depositing up to five different materials per chamber. The Clover MRAM PVD platform includes on-board metrology that measures and monitors the thickness of the MRAM layers with sub-angstrom sensitivity as they are created to ensure atomic-level uniformity.

A new market report by Objective Analysis and Coughlin Associates expects that stand-alone MRAM and STT-MRAM revenues will grow 170X from 2018 to 2029, reaching almost $4 billion in revenues. The growth of next-generation memory technologies will be mainly driven by displacing today’s less efficient memory technologies like NOR flash and SRAM.

The analysts expect many memory technologies, including DRAM, 3D Xpoint and NAND to grow in the coming years, but the most stellar growth will be of MRAM memories. Shipments in terms of capacity are expected to grow from around 0.1 Petabytes in 2019 to almost 1 million Petabytes by 2029.

Tohoku University's Center for Innovative Integrated Electronic System (CIES) announced that its collaboration with Keysight Technology has led to the release of a new MRAM test platform product, the NX5730A.

Keysight's NX5730A is a high-throughput 1 ns Pulsed IV memory test solution. Keysight says that this solution is a unique dedicated system for characterizing emerging devices such as magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) on silicon wafers, accelerating the efficiency of device characterization and memory production testing.

Veeco developed an Ion Beam Etch system for MRAM production, and during the company's Q3 2017 conference call it updated on the new system.

Veeco says that its Ion Beam technology is well suited for etching the multilayer magnetic stack used in MRAM chips. Veeco already placed systems at multiple customers and expect high volume manufacturing to start next year for embedded memory applications.

Samsung's semiconductor chief Kim Ki-nam says that Samsung is developing next-generation memory technologies, such as MRAM and RRAM. According to Kim "Samsung will commercialize MRAMs and ReRAMs according to our own schedule. We are on our way and will be ready soon"

Samsung targets MRAM as an update to DRAM memory, while RRAM will be used as a storage memory to replace NAND.