Memsys: A New Memory Conference

1999 White HouseSince I am the Memory Guy I hate learning that I missed something new and cool in the world of memories, but somehow I was unaware of last week’s Memsys conference in Washington DC until a participant notified me on Saturday that his paper: “Reverse Engineering of DRAMs: Row Hammer with Crosshair,” had been given the the best paper award.

Upon looking at the Memsys website it looks like a very intriguing academic conference.  about sixty papers were presented in eight interesting sessions:

  • Issues in High Performance Computing
  • Nonvolatile Main Memories and DRAM Caches, Parts I & II
  • Hybrid Memory Cube and Alternative DRAM Channels
  • Thinking Outside the Box
  • Improving the DRAM Device Architecture
  • Issues and Interconnects for 2.5D and 3D Packaging
  • Some Amazingly Cool Physical Experiments

in addition to a few apparently-fascinating keynotes.

Fortunately, all of the papers are Continue reading “Memsys: A New Memory Conference”

Cypress to Merge with Spansion

NOR flash and SRAM revenues are in decline, but MCUs are growing(Excerpted from an Objective Analysis Alert issued 1 December 2014.)

In a move touted as a merger of equals, Cypress will acquire Spansion in an all-stock transaction slated to close in the second quarter of 2015.  The purchase price is estimated at $1.6 billion.

Cypress points out that it is the leading producer of SRAMs, and that Spansion is the leading NOR flash provider.

One striking feature of this transaction is the Continue reading “Cypress to Merge with Spansion”