Perhaps the oldest nonvolatile semiconductor memory type is the ferroelectric memory, which recently celebrated its 68th birthday. FRAM predates flash memory, EEPROM, and even UV-erasable EPROM. It’s even older than mask ROM, which wasn’t invented until 1967!
As a matter of introduction to the technology, FRAM, or ferroelectric memory, is a read/write nonvolatile memory technology that performs significantly better than Continue reading “FRAM Turns 68”
Tom Coughlin and I are proud to announce that we have released an update of our popular emerging memory report. This report, titled Emerging Memories Ramp Up, covers all leading emerging memory technologies from PCM and 3D XPoint through MRAM and ReRAM to less-known types like carbon nanotubes and polymeric FRAMs.
Anyone who makes or uses memory chips, or who is involved in this ecosystem as an investor or tool supplier needs to read and understand this study to prepare for one of the biggest changes in the history of the chip market. The report’s wealth of information will allow companies to make strategic plans to gain a competitive edge.
The report’s forecast model has determined that the emerging memory market will grow to $20 billion by 2029 largely by displacing today’s less efficient Continue reading “Emerging Memory Report Updated”
With all the new emerging memories that are being developed there must be quite a number of test runs to study exactly how well these new technologies and materials can perform. If a batch of 300mm wafers must be used for a single test then the cost multiplies, particularly if no other test can be run on that wafer.
Another great difficulty is that most memory manufacturers run their wafers on very high-efficiency and high-volume wafer fabs. It is perilous and wasteful to interrupt a production process to inject a batch of test wafers. Most fab managers would rather have a tooth pulled than to change their flow to accept an experimental lot.
What can be done to improve this situation?
Well the folks at Intermolecular, Inc. (IMI) explained to the Memory Guy that they have a solution: They have built a small fab that allows single wafers to be processed with varying parameters across a single wafer. In this way one wafer can be used to run 36 or more different experiments all at the same time. This is clearly more economical than having to run the experiment on 36 wafers or, even worse, 36 batches of wafers! Intermolecular says that, while production fabs are optimized for manufacturing, their fab is optimized for materials understanding.
The firm calls itself an Continue reading “Accelerating New Memory Materials Research”
Everyone knows that flash memory is about to hit its scaling limit – it’s right around the corner. We’re ready for it because it’s been right around the corner for more than a decade now. It’s so close we can taste it.
One thing that is quite clear is that nobody knows when NAND flash will stop scaling. Everyone knows that it’s soon, but researchers continue to find ways to push the technology another couple of process nodes past where anyone thought it could possibly go, and they have been doing this since Continue reading “The End of Flash Scaling”
