First commercial MRAM memory product now in volume production

9 August 2006 Computer/Embedded Technology

Said to be the first commercial magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) device available, Freescale’s new four megabit (Mbit) MRAM product is now in volume production and available from the chipmaker.

The 4-Mbit MRAM product is a fast, non-volatile memory with unlimited endurance - a combination of characteristics not available in any other individual semiconductor memory product.

"With the commercialisation of MRAM, Freescale is the first-to-market with a technology of tremendous possibilities and profound implications," says Bob Merritt, Semico Research. "Competition to become the first company to market MRAM technology was fierce. This is a significant achievement that certainly confirms the dedication of Freescale's engineering team."

MRAM uses magnetic materials combined with conventional silicon circuitry to deliver the speed of SRAM with the non-volatility of Flash in a single, high endurance device. According to the company, the successful commercialisation of this technology could hasten new classes of electronic products offering dramatic advances in size, cost, power consumption and system performance.

Freescale's first commercial MRAM product, called the MR2A16A, is appropriate for a variety of commercial applications such as networking, security, data storage, gaming and printers. The MR2A16A is a commercial temperature range, 3,3 V device featuring 35 ns read and write cycle times. It is an asynchronous memory organised as 256 K words by 16 bits. An industry standard SRAM pinout arrangement allows for system design flexibility without bus contention.

The part is engineered to be a reliable, economical, single-component replacement for battery-backed SRAM units. The device also could be used in cache buffers, configuration storage memories and other applications that require the speed, endurance and non-volatility of MRAM.

The device is housed in a 400 mil TSOP type-II RoHS package.

For more information contact Andrew Athanasiou, Arrow Altech Distribution, +27 (0)21 555 1884, aathanasiou@arrow.altech.co.za

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