p2p news / p2pnet: An Mram chip able to store data like a hard drive has been released by Freescale.

Mram is short for magnetoresistive random-access memory and it works by using magnetic polarization rather than electric charge to store data and, “MRAM endurance is unlimited, with no known or expected deterioration mechanism, while typical Flash endurance is only 105 write cycles,” promises the company.

“In applications where the speed of microprocessors is limited by the bottleneck of data transfer between nonvolatile memory and processor chips, MRAM is designed to remove the bottleneck by placing the high-speed nonvolatile memory directly in communications with the microprocessor.”

The first product, MR2A16A, is a 4 Mbit memory appropriate for applications such as networking, security, data storage, gaming and printers, says Freescale.

Analyst Will Strauss is quoted by the BBC as saying this is the most significant memory introduction in this decade, going on, "This is radically new technology. People have been dabbling in this for years, but nobody has been able to make it in volume."

Nonvolatile MRAM can function as a universal memory in many applications and eliminates the need to combine memories, states Freescale.

Stand-alone MRAM chips can serve as a single-component replacement for battery-backed SRAM units and other applications include cache buffers, configuration storage memory and, “any application which can leverage the speed, flexibility and non-volatility of MRAM,” it goes on, stating:

“Since MRAM is nonvolatile, it retains the data when completely turned off. System power can be significantly reduced compared to DRAM by shutting down the MRAM when inactive since there is no background refreshing required. When compared with Flash, MRAM achieves much better performance in write speed and endurance. MRAM consumes much less energy in a write cycle because the energy/bit is several orders of magnitude lower than Flash.”

The first commercial 3.3 V MR2A16A in a 400 mil, 44 lead plastic Thin Small-Outline Package (TSOP) type-II RoHS package using an industry standard SRAM pinout, is now available, says Freescale. It’s organized as 256K words by 16 bits with a 35 nanosecond read and write cycle time.

Other MR2A16A Features

• Commercial temperature range (0°C to 70°C)
• Flexible data bus control – 8 bit or 16 bit access
• Equal address and chip-enable access times
• Automatic data protection with low-voltage inhibit circuitry to prevent writes on power loss
• All inputs and outputs are transistor-transistor logic (TTL) compatible
• Fully static operation
• Full nonvolatile operation with 10 years minimum data retention

Digg this.

Also See:
BBC -‘Magnetic memory’ chip unveiled, July 10, 2006

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 8:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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