The Everspin Blog: Choices - Toggle or STT-MRAM?

There are clear benefits to using Toggle MRAM and STT-MRAM which is why Everspin continues to invest in both product lines. In June 2019, we announced production phase for our 1 Gb STT-MRAM product. During the announcement, many media and analysts viewed this as a move away from our Toggle MRAM product line. That couldn’t be further from the truth, evidenced by our recent expansion of our Toggle MRAM solutions. We deliver choices to our customers to meet their broad application requirements. We’re now offering a wide variety of Toggle MRAM densities, with new 2Mb, 8MB and 32Mb Toggle MRAM solutions to accompany our 16MB and other low-density solutions, adding to memory and price point variety.

The needs and adoption for Toggle MRAM and STT-MRAM are both growing.  As STT-MRAM density expands, it’s increasingly moving toward becoming a universal memory and with new density and price points for Toggle MRAM, it’s becoming the persistent memory standard for SRAM replacement.  Let’s take a look at use cases for each:


Toggle MRAM for Industrial Applications

Toggle MRAM continues to serve a number of industries, including transportation, aerospace, enterprise, medical, Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial. For example, Everspin works with global specialist in energy management and automation Schneider Electric to improve the capacity of Schneider’s proven Modicon controller product, the Modicon M580 Ethernet Programmable Automation Controller (ePAC). After this product was released, Jean-Jacques Adragna, Architect Manager, Schneider Electric said, “Everspin understands the unique demands of customers in industrial markets. Features like long term data retention and extreme temperature support are very important in often harsh industrial environments. The inherent endurance of the technology simplifies and speeds product development by avoiding the use of error correction codes and wear leveling schemes required with other non-volatile memory technologies. Everspin is a trusted technology supplier that gives us visibility on its comprehensive roadmap, helping to shape our long term strategy.”

Designed for applications requiring extreme data reliability and speed, Everspin’s 16-Megabit MR4A16BMA35 Toggle MRAM benefits system designers with the fastest non-volatile memory on the market, symmetrical read/write performance and unlimited endurance. These memory features ensure automation designers, as an example, that process data is retained deterministically and safely every time a power interruption occurs. In addition to the performance, the technology also allows a battery free eco-design.

 

Everspin’s STT-MRAM for Enterprise/Data Center computing

As enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), flash modules, and network acceleration cards strive to reduce the size of their form factor (or pack more flash in the same form factor) and increase overall performance, these solution providers are facing greater challenges. There’s a need to increase density, endurance, performance and add new functionality, while protecting data-in-flight from power failures. As these devices rapidly grow by using more flash channels with faster interface speeds and higher density flash devices, so will the increase for energy storage to provide power fail protection.  Here’s where Everspin’s Spin-transfer Torque (STT) Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory can help by utilizing the DDR bus of the controller/FPGA and provide the following benefits:

  • High-speed, non-volatile cache
  • Reduce write amplification in the flash array
  • Increase performance and reduce latency
  • Reduce power fail energy storage without impacting data protection
  • Provide advanced “on device” persistent CMB buffering
  • Provide non-volatile storage for applications including deduplication and compression

For these reasons, as one example, IBM collaborated with Everspin to introduce its NVMe Flash CoreModule™ with Everspin STT-MRAM Write Cache. 

The demand for Toggle MRAM and STT-MRAM are growing across many market segments and Everspin is continuing to support both product lines as the industry embraces our complete portfolio of the most durable, highest performance persistent memory available. It’s good to have choices!

Troy Winslow, Vice President, Sales