MRAM will kill FLASH ?

MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[mingfeng]

who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
Will it kill FLASH soon?

--

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Conn Clark]

mingfeng wrote:
> who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
> Will it kill FLASH soon?

It probably wont be soon. I don't think it will kill flash completely 
either.

Conn
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Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Gordon J Milne]

mingfeng wrote:
> who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
> Will it kill FLASH soon?

Hopefully it will kill FLASH but I cannot see it happening anytime soon. 
MRAM storage densities have a long way to go to make MRAM a competitive 
alternative to FLASH. But this is to be expected because the MRAM developers 
have only just moved form the working on the device fundamentals to the 
production building issues.

It is difficult to say how long it will take but I suspect that as soon as 
device densities approach 50% that of FLASH, you will see MRAM taking over 
in specialist devices - top end PDAs, niche embedded systems, etc. And, of 
course, the Instant-On computer.

The recent announcement by Toshiba and SanDisk about futher reducing the 
size of NAND FLASH cells increases the lifetime of FLASH and raise the bar 
for MRAM deployment.

BTW, a recent issue of IEEE Spectrum had a good overview article on the 
"new" memory technologies of MRAM, FRAM (Ferromagnetic RAM) and OUM (Ovonic 
Unified Memory). It described the benefits of each and the underlying 
physical principle involved.

See http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/spectrum/mar03/features/semi.html fro more 
details.

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Charles Manning]

On Thursday 12 June 2003 20:40, you wrote:
> who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
> Will it kill FLASH soon?

THere was stuff a bit like MRAM\, I think called FRAM some time back -- 
??1980s?? by people called RAMTRON or something. Densities were not fantastic 
and the endurance was limited not only by writing, but also reading. ie. 100M 
reads or writes and it was dead.

I certainly won't cry if flash goes away, but I hunch it will be a while 
before MRAM becomes a serious competitor (ie. can be made cheaper than NAND).

-- CHarles

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Gordon J Milne]

Gordon J Milne wrote:
> BTW, a recent issue of IEEE Spectrum had a good overview article on the 
> "new" memory technologies of MRAM, FRAM (Ferromagnetic RAM) and OUM 
> (Ovonic Unified Memory). It described the benefits of each and the 
> underlying physical principle involved.

Oops, FRAM = Ferroelectric RAM, NOT ferromagnetic

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Gordon J Milne]

Charles Manning wrote:
> On Thursday 12 June 2003 20:40, you wrote:
> 
>>who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
>>Will it kill FLASH soon?
> 
> 
> THere was stuff a bit like MRAM\, I think called FRAM some time back -- 
> ??1980s?? by people called RAMTRON or something. Densities were not fantastic 
> and the endurance was limited not only by writing, but also reading. ie. 100M 
> reads or writes and it was dead.

Accoridng to the IEEE Spectrum article. FRAM read speed is around 50% that 
of DRAM. There was no mention in the article of an issue with device lifetime.

RAMTRON's FRAM devices are manufactured by Fujitsu. RAMTRON has been 
shipping FRAM devices since 1992.

> I certainly won't cry if flash goes away, but I hunch it will be a while 
> before MRAM becomes a serious competitor (ie. can be made cheaper than NAND).

Yes, it will be a little while so we shall all be putting up with the pain 
of FLASH fro quite soem time to come.

Gordon

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Jasmine Strong]

On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Conn Clark wrote:

> mingfeng wrote:
> > who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
> > Will it kill FLASH soon?
> 
> It probably wont be soon. I don't think it will kill flash completely 
> either.

And either way it'll probably work the same sort of way as NAND Flash;
ie error-prone, block-oriented and byte-serial.

-Jas.

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Charles Manning]

On Saturday 14 June 2003 00:07, Jasmine Strong wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Conn Clark wrote:
> > mingfeng wrote:
> > > who know MRAM(Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) ?
> > > Will it kill FLASH soon?
> >
> > It probably wont be soon. I don't think it will kill flash completely
> > either.
>
> And either way it'll probably work the same sort of way as NAND Flash;
> ie error-prone, block-oriented and byte-serial.

My understanding of MRAM is that it can be read and written like RAM (ie. no 
concept of blocks, erasing etc. It might be error prone, but that can perhaps 
be sorted the same way as RAM errors are handled.

The biggest hurdle is that this stuff is still not practical for most 
applicaions. We're looking at devices of a few MB in 2004, when NAND is 
already volume shipping 256 MB. Thus, MRAM will only suite very niche 
applications for the forseeable future.

IMHO

-- CHarles

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Russ Dill]

> The biggest hurdle is that this stuff is still not practical for most 
> applicaions. We're looking at devices of a few MB in 2004, when NAND is 
> already volume shipping 256 MB. Thus, MRAM will only suite very niche 
> applications for the forseeable future.

correct, right now cypress is shipping 64kb and 256kb units, their
marketing angle is for replacement of batery backed sram.

-- 
Russ Dill <Russ.Dill@asu.edu>

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Jörn Engel]

On Sun, 15 June 2003 11:15:17 -0700, Russ Dill wrote:
> 
> correct, right now cypress is shipping 64kb and 256kb units, their
> marketing angle is for replacement of batery backed sram.

Interesting.  Do you have rough prices?  Something line "NOR costs 3x
as much as RAM"?

Jörn

-- 
My second remark is that our intellectual powers are rather geared to
master static relations and that our powers to visualize processes
evolving in time are relatively poorly developed.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra

Re: MRAM will kill FLASH ?

[Russ Dill]

On Sun, 2003-06-15 at 11:36, Jörn Engel wrote:
> On Sun, 15 June 2003 11:15:17 -0700, Russ Dill wrote:
> > 
> > correct, right now cypress is shipping 64kb and 256kb units, their
> > marketing angle is for replacement of batery backed sram.
> 
> Interesting.  Do you have rough prices?  Something line "NOR costs 3x
> as much as RAM"?

I can't find any pricing, and its a very new product. You'd probably
have to contact them for a quote.

-- 
Russ Dill <Russ.Dill@asu.edu>