Freescale now producing MRAM in volume

[unixronin]

The BBC reports that Freescale has begun volume production of MRAM (magnetoresistive random access memory).  The first MRAM product offering is a four-megabit 3.3V chip with 35ns read/write times, packaged in an industry-standard TSOP SRAM form factor.  The MRAM technology is non-volatile, like flash RAM, but unlike flash RAM, does not degrade with use and has a potentially unlimited lifetime (as well as being considerably faster).  It consumes considerably less power than either DRAM or flash RAM.

Find other news articles on Freescale's MRAM offering here.

(Thanks are due to juuro for the pointer.)

Comments

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

Yes but will it survive an electromagnetic pulse?

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

I think the cells can but the data may not be able to. You'd have to harden them to a milspec I can't recall just now and the cost of them would be...rediculous.

[richspk.livejournal.com]

Freescale's a spin-off from Motorola, right?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's correct, yes.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Yes, at $25.00 per chip. I can think of very few applications that would be able to absorb that kind of cost, or justify it. (Medical would be one.)

This is really cool stuff. But, doesn't it feel weird to be moving back to "core" memory?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think it's a safe bet the cost will come down.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

How far down? From $25.00 for four Mbit to about $5.00 for 512 Mbit is a pretty big stretch to bridge.

I have to admit that I am comparing apples and oranges here, but a 600+ cost multiplier makes it hard to compare.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

This is true, but ... how long has it taken the price of DRAM to drop 2.5 orders of magnitude? How about disk? How about flash RAM?

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

That is not an exact analogy. Industry wide DRAM, FLASH and DISK have cross patent agreements, and in some cases, specific research groups that share results. Result, there are MANY dollars from many companies working to reduce cost for those technologies.

For MRAM, there is only Freescale, working alone (As far as I can tell.)

Cost reductions are not automatic in technology. It takes considerable research and coin. I don't yet see that here.