TowerJazz and Crocus advance disruptive memory
MRAM is projected to be the biggest market segment, growing from $25 million to $1 billion. Emerging non-volatile memories are expected to increase from $210 million in 2012 to $2 billion in 2018
TowerJazz and Crocus Technology have together made a breakthrough in a disruptive magnetic technology.
This technology offers SRAM performance in terms of speed and power with Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) capabilities.
This MRAM solution has demonstrated more than two billion cycles of program/erase on a 4M bit NVM product.
The first market to be addressed is Battery Backed SRAM (BB-SRAM).Crocus' BB-SRAM products offer fast access times, low power and unlimited write cycles - without the need for cost, recharging and long-term disposal of a lithium battery.
According to a 2013 "Emerging Non-Volatile Memories" report from Yole Développement, higher-density NVM chips will spawn many new applications and increase the business ten-fold in just five years. The report says the sizable growth in emerging NVM will be due to increased use in various markets including industrial & transportation, enterprise storage, smart card, mobiles phones and mass storage.
Crocus has developed a Magnetic Logic Unit (MLU) architecture based on its patented, self-reference Thermally Assisted Switching technology which enables a number of previously unachievable breakthroughs in magnetic memory implementation. These include highly robust secure embedded memory, ultra-high-temperature NVM operation (e.g. > 200° C), order-of-magnitude higher density hardware-based table searches (e.g. content addressable memory), high density multi-bit storage, and scaling to sub-20nm manufacturing.
"Crocus and TowerJazz have collaborated for many years to develop this disruptive technology to address the growing and vast number of markets which can be served by emerging NVM such as cache memory for enterprise storage, MCUs for smart cards, industrial and automotive applications, mobile phones and more," says Bertrand F. Cambou, executive chairman of Crocus Technology.
He continues, "TowerJazz is a known leader in NVM foundry solutions and has been the ideal partner to quickly bring leading edge commercial chip products to an eager and growing marketplace. Our collaboration will enable us to achieve high volume business for both companies with a long life on TowerJazz's platform."
"We are excited to bring this technology to volume production in Q4 this year and in so doing to be the first foundry with MRAM capability. At two billion program/erase cycles with one billion read at less than 35nsec on a 4Mb product, this technology outperforms any other available MRAM solution in the market," adds Russell Ellwanger, CEO TowerJazz.
"We have a long history and much expertise with NVM at TowerJazz having co-developed the initial Saifun NROM technology as well as organically holding strong NVM IP blocks such as Y-flash, a zero mask adder mid-size NVM. The Y-Flash is a powerful enabler that is in volume production with many of our customers and has been licensed to the largest in our industry. With this background, our team is qualified and realistic to state that the MRAM activity and the achievements with Bertrand and his Crocus team are revolutionary and offer innovative solutions to a number of our respective customers."
Crocus' says its proprietary MRAM technology has demonstrated its stability, reliability, data retention, endurance, and scalability, while exhibiting high speed, low power dissipation, and excellent resistance to external perturbation.
MRAM is particularly suited to applications requiring high data reliability and high performance, and has the potential of becoming the universal embedded memory technology for systems-on-chip devices.
It is claimed to be the only proven new memory technology providing non-volatility, unlimited-write-endurance, high-density, and symmetrical high-speed read & write.
