But fujitsu and rmtr are only agreeing to make 4Mbit parts now.
I dont know anything about Ramtron but as sbh said, and reported here, large memories look some way off. In this environment size really matters, and as digi cam pixel count goes up, and people want more than 30 mins of MP3, maybe a number of cards to take on the road, CF seems to have an edge for some way to come. 32Mb is becoming a minimum for digi cam or MP3, probably sometime this year 64 or 128 will become the new minimum. If FRAM was free but no bigger than 1 or 4, it still wouldnt be a competitor.
FRAM will have to come up in size much faster than CF if it is to become a competitor. Does anyone know how likely this is?
Joe
Ramtron and Fujitsu Develop High Density FRAM
Ramtron International Corp and Fujitsu Ltd claim to have developed a
"production-worthy" architecture that will help bring
high-density ferroelectric memory chips to market. Colorado Springs,
Colorado-based Ramtron and its Japanese partner said its new
ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) architecture will also
slash production costs.
FRAM technology combines fast read/write speed and can store
information without power, making it especially suitable for mobile
devices. The new architecture, which has been proved on a 1Mb
prototype device , uses a one-transistor, one-capacitor (1T/1C) memory
cell design.
Ramtron and Fujitsu said the new architecture makes Mb-class FRAM
memories achievable. It will also help production costs of the chips
which have been prohibitively expensive to build given cheap
alternatives such as DRAM. The successful demonstration has prompted
Ramtron partner Fujitsu to invest a further $2m in the project. |
