August 17, 2017

What is Spin Torque MRAM?

The memory market is going in several different directions at once. On one front, the traditional memory types, such as DRAM and flash, remain the workhorse technologies. Then, several vendors are readying the next-generation memory types.

As part of an ongoing series, Semiconductor Engineering will explore where the new and traditional memory technologies are heading.

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August 9, 2017

Everspin’s new MRAM-based nvNITRO NVMe card delivers Optane-crushing 1.46 million IOPS

This week, Everspin launched its line of MRAM-based nvNITRO NVMe Storage Accelerator cards with an incredible performance spec: up to 1.46 million IOPS for random 4Kbyte mixed 70/30 read/write operations. In the world of IOPS, that’s very fast. In fact it’s roughly 3x faster than an Intel P4800X Optane SSD card, which is spec’ed at up to 500K IOPS for random 4Kbyte mixed 70/30 read/write operations. Multiple factors contribute to the nvNITRO Storage Accelerator’s speed including Everspin’s new 1Gbit Spin Torque Magnetorestrictive RAM (ST-MRAM) with high-speed, DDR4, SDRAM-compatible I/O; a high-performance, MRAM-specific memory controller IP block compatible with NVMe 1.1+; and the Xilinx Kintex UltraScale KU060 FPGA that implements the MRAM controller and the board’s PCIe Gen3 x8 host interface. Everspin’s nvNITRO NVMe cards will ship in Q4 of 2017 and will be available in 1 and 2Gbyte capacities.

 

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August 8, 2017

Non-Volatile RAM is Real – Everspin Briefing Note

The future is now. For years it seems like non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) has been a technology that is just over the horizon. While there have been some isolated use cases where the technology makes sense and is being used, we are now entering, actually we’ve entered, an era where broad adoption of the technology is realistic. To underscore the state of NVRAM, Everspin Technologiesis now shipping its first version of its nvNITRO Storage Accelerator which puts NVRAM technology in the hands of data center planners and storage system builders.

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August 8, 2017

Everspin hits the 1Gb milestone with new 28nm MRAMs

Eversping has a bunch of MRAM announcements today starting with the first Gigabit device. On top of that there are a few PCIe based accelerator boards to talk about.

SemiAccurate has always thought Everspin technology was interesting and saw a lot of potential for the products. Until today you could only get their MRAM in 256Mb capacities, enough for some applications but a bit of a psychological downer to be in the Mb class in a Gb world. Sure the tech was radically different but those numbers do make some skeptical. As we mentioned that changed with the introduction of today’s 1Gb class MRAMs. They are built on a Globalfoundries 28nm process, something SemiAccurate previously told you about, and will probably port down to the 22/20nm node soon enough.

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August 7, 2017

Gbit MRAM Debuts at Flash Summit

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Everspin announced it is sampling a Gbit MRAM chip and will be in production this year with 1-2 Gbyte cards based on its 256 Mbit chip. The news at the Flash Memory Summithere marks a small but significant advance for a growing collection of persistent memories at an event focused on the still rising market for mainstream NAND.

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May 31, 2017

Toshiba Bidding And Other Solid State Storage Developments

There are many developments on flash memory to discuss, including the latest developments in the Toshiba NAND flash fab bidding, a new SSD from WD and Seagate’s solid-state hard drive (SSHD) for high performance enterprise applications. In addition, MRAM growth as an emerging solid-state memory is evident in Everspin’s quarterly announcements as well as announcements and talks from Samsung and TDK.

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May 22, 2017

Impinj and Everspin Memory Chips Could Be the Next Big Thing

In the world of computer chips, all glory goes to the microprocessor, and especially to the kind that Intel sells, which serves as the brains of your personal computer.

But there are many other kinds of chips in the universe of semiconductors, some increasingly more important.

This magazine argued in a 2015 cover story that memory...

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March 27, 2017

Moore's Law's Over: Don't Buy Intel, Qualcomm Or Western Digital

Beginning in the late 1960s you could bet that every 18 to 24 months the number of transistors on a semiconductor would double while its cost fell 50%. Now that predictable pattern -- dubbed Moore's Law -- is no more.

Does that mean the companies that used to follow Moore's Law -- such as Intel, Qualcomm, and Western Digital (I have no financial interest in the companies mentioned in this post) -- are fated to a future of mediocrity? Or can they build or buy their way to faster growth?

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March 13, 2017

nvNITRO operates at 1.5M IOPS with 6μs latency

Everspin has a fairly robust market for its first-generation products—the company also announced that JAG Jakob, which makes process control systems for pharmaceuticals and biotech facilities, is using its 16Mb MRAM. However, the market for the higher density ST-MRAM devices is still evolving.

“There is always some type of market adoption rate for new technology,” said Joe O’Hare, Everspin’s director of product marketing. “But we’ve been making very good progress here.”

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March 10, 2017

Everspin's 1.5 million IOP SSD: Their secret is MRAM

Everspin has shipped over 60 million MRAM chips in the last eight years. So why haven't you heard of them?

MRAM is a different type of nonvolatile memory, with unlimited durability, good speed - 35nsec reads and writes - 20+ years of data durability, lower power consumption than flash, byte addressability, and the ability to endure extreme temperatures. It also costs much more than flash. As such it has found a ready market in embedded systems where reliability and ruggedness are paramount, like automotive, military and industrial applications.

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