Freescale Semiconductor has brought the first commercial Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) device, which uses electron spin to store information, to market.
MRAM is electronic memory technology which is almost instantly available, non-volatile, and has a large capacity but with low power demands. MRAM can resist high radiation and can operate in extreme temperature conditions.
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. Freescale's commercialisation of this technology could hasten new classes of electronic products offering dramatic advances in size, cost, power consumption and system performance.
"The commercial launch of the industry's first MRAM product is a major milestone made possible by the pioneering research of Freescale technologists," said Sumit Sadana, senior vice president, Strategy and Business Development, and Chief Technology Officer, Freescale. "The unique capabilities of MRAM technology have numerous exciting applications in our target markets."
Freescale's first commercial 4Mbit MRAM product, called the MR2A16A, is suitable for a variety of commercial applications such as networking, security, data storage, gaming and printers. The part is engineered to be a 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 speed, endurance and non-volatility.
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